The Voice That Was Heard Once in a Hundred Years

In 1939, Marian Anderson was denied the stage at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. The Daughters of the American Revolution refused to let a Black woman sing in their concert venue. The judgment was swift and dismissive — can anything good come from the poor streets of South Philadelphia?

But years earlier, the legendary conductor Arturo Toscanini had already seen what others could not. After hearing Anderson perform in Salzburg, he declared, "A voice like yours is heard once in a hundred years." He did not need to wait for the world's verdict. He recognized greatness while others were still making their prejudgments.

When Eleanor Roosevelt arranged for Anderson to sing at the Lincoln Memorial instead, seventy-five thousand people gathered on the National Mall. The woman the establishment had dismissed stood before a nation and opened her mouth with "My Country, 'Tis of Thee." The voice that one organization deemed unworthy shook an entire capital.

Nathanael nearly missed Jesus because of a zip code. "Can anything good come from Nazareth?" he scoffed. But Jesus had already seen Nathanael sitting under the fig tree, already knew the honest heart beneath the skepticism. The Almighty does not wait for our approval before He knows us. Long before we form our opinions about where God might show up, He has already been watching, already calling, already preparing something far greater than our small assumptions could imagine.