{"quotes":[{"text":"Man's delight in the Lord is the absolute peak of human triumph. He praises God when full of joy, and when not, he praises God to become full of joy. For to know and to live as though God is worthy of all praise, in all one's circumstances, whether seemingly good or seemingly bad, is the primary definition of joy and the richest triumph for man under God.","author":"Criss Jami","tags":["apologetics","awe","church","delight","glorification","glorification-of-god","glorifying-god","glory","god","greatness","happiness","holiness","honor","joy","lord","love","man","music","peace","praise","prayer","respect","reverence","rich","singing","strength","triumph","trust","victory","worship","worthiness"],"id":649,"author_id":"Criss+Jami"},{"text":"Luke said that he was surprised when I showed up at his room. That he hadn’t meant to give me the wrong idea. That he would never have taken it beyond just kissing. And he looked so genuine. So trustworthy. So sorry about what had happened. He almost convinced me that I’d misread his signals.” Hallelujah pauses. “The whole time, I kept my mouth shut. I wish I hadn’t. But I was still so humiliated. And I felt guilty. I made out with him. I liked it. And no one made me go to his room.”Her voice breaks. She has to swallow past a lump in her throat.“I know Luke’s not a good guy. I know what he did isn’t my fault. It’s his. But still, none of it would’ve happened if I hadn’t gone to his room.”She’s almost there. Almost done. Almost heard. Something deep inside her hurts like it hasn’t hurt in a long time. But she knows that this gash had to reopen in order to heal. That’s how wounds work. They need air.“I knew I’d get punished, and I did. My parents grounded me. I was put on youth group probation. But I honestly thought Luke’s lies would just fade away if I kept a low profile. There’s always gossip about someone. This time it was me.”...“Luke is still telling people about what supposedly happened that night,” Hallelujah says. “And he makes fun of me. All the time. What I look like, what I say, my name. And he does this thing at church: whenever we sing a hymn with my name in it, he sings it like he’s hooking up with me. He sings the word ‘hallelujah’ at me. He moans it. And I hate it.” That’s one of the reasons she stopped singing: his voice, his fake grunts of satisfaction, ruining the music she loved so much.“You said,” she says to Jonah, “he wanted to keep me upset. To keep me from telling anyone what really happened. Well, it worked.” She pauses. “Until now.”“Until now,” Rachel repeats. Then she curses. “I can’t believe him. I can’t believe he got away with it.”“I let him get away with it,” Hallelujah says softly.“No. He’s the one who crossed the line. And okay, maybe you could’ve spoken up sooner. But if no one pushed you for your side of the story, that’s on them.” Rachel yawns and stretches. “And when we get home, we’re going to set the record straight.","author":"Kathryn Holmes","tags":["bully","get-away-with-it","hallelujah-calhoun","harass","hate","jonah","lies","luke-willis","punished","rachel-jackson","singing","torment"],"id":2475,"author_id":"Kathryn+Holmes"},{"text":"The song in my heart makes me glad.","author":"Lailah Gifty Akita","tags":["glad-heart","lailah-gifty-akita-affirmations","motivation","singing"],"id":3659,"author_id":"Lailah+Gifty+Akita"},{"text":"People began to join in, quietly at first to match her mood, but as the song built up at the end, their voices did as well, so that by the time they got to the final “Free to be you and me,” the whole school could hear them. Caught in the pure delight of it, Jess turned and his eyes met Leslie’s. He smiled at her. What the heck? There wasn’t any reason he couldn’t. What was he scared of anyhow? Lord. Sometimes he acted like the original yellow-bellied sapsucker. He nodded and smiled again. She smiled back. He felt there in the teachers’ room that it was the beginning of a new season in his life, and he chose deliberately to make it so.He did not have to make any announcement to Leslie that he had changed his mind about her. She already knew it. She plunked herself down beside him on the bus and squeezed over closer to him to make room for May Belle on the same seat. She talked about Arlington, about the huge suburban school she used to go to with its gorgeous music room but not a single teacher in it as beautiful or as nice as Miss Edmunds.","author":"Katherine Patterson","tags":["friendship","music","singing"],"id":6728,"author_id":"Katherine+Patterson"},{"text":"I loved the different voices all singing one song, the various tones and qualities, the passing lifts of feeling, rising up and going out forever. Old Man Profet, who was a different man on Sunday, used to draw out the notes at the ends of verses so he could listen to himself, and in fact it sounded pretty.","author":"Wendell Berry","tags":["community","singing"],"id":8629,"author_id":"Wendell+Berry"},{"text":"Blessed is the nightbird that sings for joy and not to be heard.","author":"Marty Rubin","tags":["anonymity","being","joy","singing"],"id":8969,"author_id":"Marty+Rubin"},{"text":"Anna's voice wasn't a beautiful voice - rough edged and sorrowful, a bit used, somehow male and female at once. Yet it had more vibrancy to it than most Danish voices, which were often thin and white and too pretty to trigger a shiver. Anna's voice had the heat of the south; it warmed Einar, as if her throat were read with coals.","author":"David Ebershoff","tags":["singing","songs","sound","voals","voice"],"id":13227,"author_id":"David+Ebershoff"},{"text":"THE FOUR HEAVENLY FOUNTAINSLaugh, I tell youAnd you will turn backThe hands of time.Smile, I tell youAnd you will reflectThe face of the divine.Sing, I tell youAnd all the angels will sing with you!Cry, I tell youAnd the reflections found in your pool of tears -Will remind you of the lessons of today and yesterdayTo guide you through the fears of tomorrow.","author":"Suzy Kassem","tags":["age","aging","angel","angels","aspiration","attitude","clock","cry","crying","divine","elder","elderly","enjoy","face","failure","fear","fears","fountains","future","god","god-streams","growing-old","hands-of-time","heaven","heavenly","inspiration","lake","laugh","laughing","laughter","life","life-abd-living","life-philosophy","living","living-in-the-present","living-life","living-well","old","past","play","playing","pond","pool","positive","present","reflect","reflection","river","senior","sing","singing","smile","smiling","social","stream","tear","tears","time","today","tomorrow","years","yesterday","young","youth"],"id":16573,"author_id":"Suzy+Kassem"},{"text":"You can take lessons to become almost anything: flying lessons, piano lessons, skydiving lessons, acting lessons, race car driving lessons, singing lessons. But there's no class for comedy. You have to be born with it. God has to give you this gift.","author":"Steve Harvey","tags":["god","gift","singing "],"id":19106,"author_id":"Steve+Harvey"},{"text":"I thought that some of the hymns bespoke the true religion of the place. The people didn't really want to be saints of self-deprivation and hatred of the world. They knew that the world would sooner or later deprive them of all it had given them, but still they liked it. What they came together for was to acknowledge, just by coming, their losses and failures and sorrows, their need for comfort, their faith always needing to be greater, their wish (in spite of all words and acts to the contrary) to love one another and to forgive and be forgiven, their need for one another's help and company and divine gifts, their hope (and experience) of love surpassing death, their gratitude.","author":"Wendell Berry","tags":["church","community","singing"],"id":19333,"author_id":"Wendell+Berry"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":242,"pages":25,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}