Because

Shawna Belt Edwards declared a piano performance major at BYU at eighteen, left school when she married — and came back nearly thirty years later, at forty-five, to finish a degree in music media. In her first semester back, her songwriting professor gave an open-ended assignment: write a song about anything.

'I wanted to write about Jesus,' Edwards said. The result was 'Because' (2006) — a song linking events of the Savior's life to the blessings in ours. The verses came quickly; the ending fought her until inspiration handed her the simplest possible close: a short list of fundamental gifts we hold because He lived.

Edwards went on to write some seventy gospel songs, spreading through Primaries worldwide via her YouTube channel and accessible sheet music — Primary leaders report children requesting her songs week after week. 'Because' became an Easter-season staple, teaching the Atonement the way children learn best: by connecting His story to their own lives.

Her larger lesson from the whole unlikely arc — the abandoned degree, the late return, the homework that became a hymn — she states plainly: 'God's plan for us is always greater than our own. Always.'

'Because' was released on June 12, 2025, as hymn #1039 in the fourth batch of Hymns—For Home and Church. That October, the Tabernacle Choir sang an arrangement of it in general conference — a class assignment, performed for the whole world.

The Church pairs it with the scripture that could be its title page: 'We love him, because he first loved us.'