Hallelujah

This month the Church released the world's largest virtual choir performance for the "Hallelujah" chorus from Handel's Messiah. I was able to submit a video for for both Tenor and Bass parts, and at least one of them made it in! So...you're welcome.

I spent this weekend back home in Arizona getting a family photo taken. While family photos are one of the most dangerous things we can do, I'm grateful that I did it. 

My mother always has me sing in sacrament meeting when I visit. Today the choir performed "Gethsemane," a children's song that quickly became popular among four-part adult choirs. The chorus is so simple yet so sweetly profound: "Gethsemane. Jesus loves me. So He gives His gift to me, from Gethsemane."

Thinking of the wonderful family that I've been blessed with, I've pondered over what it really meant to have a savior. I tried to wrap my head around the concepts of grace and reconciliation as I sat looking at a large painting by my dad of the Annunciation. Jesus was foretold by prophets and angels. His earthly ministry was so relatively short, yet its influence has reverberated across continents and oceans. No man has touched more lives and instigated more goodness.

Largely because of this, the Hallelujah chorus is possibly the most famous piece of music ever written, as many in other countries can recognize it over other English songs. I've had the pleasure of performing in Handel's Messiah as a tenor and as a bass, and both times my testimony of the divinity of Christ has been strengthened.

It is impossible with a mortal mind to truly grasp the infinite atonement performed by the Savior, but I know that someday I will. Until that time, I pray that I will have the trust to allow His grace to redeem me from my shortcomings.

There is no one on earth beyond the reach of His forgiveness. Hallelujah!