Finally, a happy story.
If you can believe it, American Idol is on its 21st season and has already eliminated all but eight contestants. One of them, a 21-year-old from Georgia, was praised during Monday’s performance for her boldness in sharing her faith throughout the competition.
Megan Danielle, a young waitress, began her Idol journey by singing “You Say,” by Lauren Daigle, a Christian artist who actually ended up joining Danielle in front of the judges. During the competition, Danielle has also sung songs like “Holy Water” by the Christian band, “We the Kingdom,” and “Thank God I Do,” one of Daigle’s newer songs.
During this past week’s performance, Danielle sang “Go Rest High on That Mountain,” to honor her late grandfather. She gave a lovely performance, and all three judges agreed.
“What I love about you— I mean, we’re way beyond loving your voice, is you’re—you know you’re never scared to tell everybody your faith,” Judge and country star Luke Bryan told her. Bryan, who had actually picked Danielle’s song for this performance, then added, “I just felt in my heart that I couldn’t pick a better one.”
As a matter of fact, Bryan had tears in his eyes during Danielle's performance and called her “perfect.”
Similarly, judge and former Commodores band member Lionel Richie complimented Danielle’s “amazing ability to touch,” adding that her "papa is very, very happy” with her performance.
Judge and singer Katy Perry referred to Danielle’s Monday performance as a gift from heaven, saying that she believes Danielle’s papa chose that song for her to sing, which is a rather Christian idea to have coming from someone like Perry.
“I think he’s trying to tell you that you are exactly where you’re meant to be right now. In reference to the song choice," Perry told Danielle. “I don’t believe in any coincidences. We couldn’t have known any of that. So I just think that was heaven-sent.”
Danielle has been outspoken about her faith throughout the competition and on her social media pages, as well. Recently, she posted that she was “born to share the love of Jesus," writing that “Even though I fail everyday, I sin and I’m not perfect… I would never claim or want to be perfect. I know it is so easy to get trapped into what the world wants of you and lose focus of His word because of what the world wants… but I am here to tell you, it is all going to be okay. God loves us & WE need to share more of Him." She even asked her followers to comment on how she could pray for them.
Presently Danielle has just under 63,000 followers on her Instagram account and is obviously confident in her faith in the Lord both in life and throughout the competition. Kudos to her, and kudos to the judges for mentioning faith in a positive light when it seems that every other day, Satan is the one being praised in Hollywood.
Hey, we’ll take a positive, Christ-affirming message when we get it, and this certainly is one.
