Diamonds

This is the title song and opening track of Hawk Nelson's seventh album. "Diamonds talks about how God can use pressure, struggle, trials and stress in our life and make it into something stronger and more beautiful," lead singer Jon Steingard said. "Just in the same way that diamonds are made. It's a big comfort to me when I'm in those times to remember that hardships have a purpose and aren't without meaning. A diamond is strong. It reflects light. It doesn't have any light of its own, but it reflects the light that it receives."

This marked the first time that Jon Steingard wrote a song from God's perspective. He told New Release Tuesday: "I wrestled with that a whole lot. I wondered if that was okay, because I'm kind of putting words in God's mouth in the song. I felt like I had to weigh carefully if these words were in God's nature and what He would really say to us. I feel like everything in the song is okay."

The song was inspired by a time Hawk Nelson were playing a concert at a youth convention. "They were listening to a message," Steingard recalled. "I could see it on their faces, that they were trying to figure out how to live their lives as teenagers, and that if they made mistakes in their lives, then their Christianity was in question." "For the young man dealing with a secret addiction or the teenage girl trying to figure out how to tell her parents that she's pregnant, a dangerous lie became believable: that God's grace and love could not possible extend this far," he continued. "It was in one of these cell phone light moments in a show that I was struck with a feeling that this is what God wanted to say to an entire generation: that He is for us, He is not against us."