I Can Only Imagine Read online

  The first Christian music cassette I ever had was by Amy Grant, but the very first one that I saved up my own money to purchase was Petra’s More Power to Ya. The band’s name came from the Greek word meaning “stone” or “rock.” They were the most popular Christian rock band for many years. While a lot of people in the church in that era debated the merging of Christian lyrics and rock music, for me it was a godsend to hear melodies like the ones I heard on the radio coupled with words I knew came from my Bible.

  One particular day, Dad saw that I hadn’t cleaned my room after he had told me to do it by the time he came home. I had also left out my jambox (a cassette player) with my beloved, hard-earned Petra tape still in it. He walked into my room and asked, “Is that your new tape in the player you left out?”

  Scared, I nodded. He took the cassette out of the machine and snapped it in half.

  The jambox was one of those super-large models with speakers that could be detached for better positioning. Let’s just say that after Dad was done with it, you could put the speakers anywhere you wanted, but they would no longer work. He completely destroyed that machine. But the good news was that it wasn’t long until I had another copy of More Power to Ya, and because Stephen was about to go away to college, he gave me his jambox. I just made sure from that point on I kept it all out of Dad’s sight.

  To be eligible to go on the church youth choir trips every summer, you had to sing a solo in a worship service. Because I really wanted to go that first summer I was involved with the youth group, I signed up to do my part to meet the requirements.

  To be completely accurate, my very first solo in church was when I was five years old. My mom was a really great singer and played the piano, so she was my accompanist. Mom told me that after she started playing the intro, I stopped her to inform everyone that she was playing the song too fast. She said she was a bit surprised but then started over at a slower tempo. I sang “I’m a Millionaire,” from a Bill Gaither kids album. (No, not about money, but riches in Christ.) I was told I did great for a preschooler. But at that age, the cute factor usually overcomes any talent deficits.

  I hadn’t sung in church since I was a little kid, so I was really scared about standing up there in front of everyone. I asked the music minister if I could sing with someone else, and he told me it was fine if I put together a duo or trio. So I recruited two friends who also wanted to go, and we sang a three-part harmony song that was popular at that time called “A Simple Prayer,” adapted from the prayer of St. Francis. This experience helped me connect the music I loved to my passion for singing.

  Back then, when a major Christian artist released a song to radio, the record label also produced an accompaniment track on cassette, a recording of the actual song without the lead vocal. Our church allowed us to use those to sing Sunday morning specials. They became the perfect way for me to perform in a professional manner during a service. With the real track, I could sing my favorite songs from my musical heroes and sound just like everyone I heard on the radio. Little did I, or anyone in my life, know the foundation that God was forming in my heart with Christian music.

  My Two Mammaws

  I was very close to both of my Mammaws, but Mammaw Millard, Dad’s mom, was around us a whole lot more than Mammaw Lindsey, especially after Dad and Mom’s divorce.

  Cloris Leachman is a well-respected, iconic Academy Award–winning actress, so when we found out she was open to being in our film, she made sense for the role of my Mammaw Millard. But first you have to know that Mammaw Millard was quite a character. She was really funny. She wasn’t trying to be; she just was. She was actually a lot like Dad, stoic and direct, but with an incredible sense of humor, though I didn’t see that part of my dad until his last few years. She had a wit and wisdom I have never seen equaled in the many people I have met around the world. She was truly one of a kind. (And yes, I have more Mammaw Millard stories to share with you. Stay tuned.)

  After my grandfather divorced her, my dad and his younger brother made it their mission to be sure all other men stayed out of Mammaw Millard’s life. My dad and his brother sabotaged any efforts men made to try to get close to her—and they succeeded. She never remarried.

  From my earliest memories, Mammaw Millard went everywhere with us. She and Dad were almost inseparable. She didn’t live with us, but she was always around. She went on every weekend trip and vacation with us. Mom joked that Dad would probably have taken her on the honeymoon if Mom hadn’t put her foot down.

  In recent years, Mom also told me that the reason for this attached-at-the-hip closeness was because my dad felt so guilty. He knew the reason that his mother was alone for the rest of her life was due to his interference in any man trying to bring her happiness. His endearing loyalty was fierce because he felt he had literally ruined her life, and he was trying to make up for something a son can’t possibly make up for.

  This effect that Mammaw Millard had on Dad was why—even after his accident, no matter how many nurses it would take to control and calm him down—she could just walk in the room and he would submit to her. She always called my dad “Bub,” so she just used his nickname and told him to calm down—and he would comply. That tiny woman could quiet that huge man with a single sentence.

  Of course, this caused yet another strain on my parents’ marriage. What wife wants her mother-in-law to be around all the time? I have to assume Dad was so strong and insistent that, as in so many other instances, Mom just gave in until she couldn’t take anymore. As they say, everyone has their breaking point. Some are just quieter than others until they reach it.

  My Mammaw Lindsey, Mom’s mother, was an incredible, godly woman and a major part of my life. She prayed constantly, consumed the Bible, and watched Christian TV all the time. I am certain her countless hours of prayer for me have had much to do with God’s grace and favor on my life.

  After my parents divorced, and particularly when Mom moved away, both my Mammaws stepped in and mothered Stephen and me as best they could. In the face of my intense feelings of abandonment from my mom, coupled with Dad’s abuse, my grandmothers filled a huge role in my life. They were the calm in my storm. Throughout my childhood, both Mammaws were such amazing friends.

  My Best (Guy) Friend

  A lot of my childhood friends were the kids of the parents in the adult singles’ class at FBC Greenville. One of those friends was Kent, whose mom was in that Sunday school class with my dad. Although Kent was two years older than me, we became inseparable.

  While in so many ways we were total opposites, we had the same interests and sense of humor. Kent is one of those guys who can become good at whatever he decides to do. He was great at sports, and I was decent. He was organized, and I wasn’t. He always showed up with a plan, and I was always game to do it. While we were really mischievous and pulled pranks constantly around town, we never drank or got into any kind of serious trouble.

  Kent and I really connected the week of my first youth camp experience. Our friendship was forged there, and we became very close confidants in each other’s lives.

  He was my only friend who had seen firsthand what my dad was capable of. After witnessing several incidents, Kent was terrified of him and didn’t really want to hang out at my house. I didn’t blame him. After all, he had a sweet single mom, and that kind of male behavior was foreign in their home. So we were always over at his house. Because his mom knew my dad from church, she would often call and tell him I was going to spend the night over there. He was always good with that. Dad liked Kent for some reason, and he didn’t like that many people.

  This arrangement worked for me. The truth was that Stephen and I didn’t want any of our friends to be around all that much, in case Dad snapped. One time my brother and a friend were hanging out in his room, listening to music. Dad had told Stephen to take out the trash, but he hadn’t. So Dad walked into the bedroom, with Stephen’s buddy sitting there, and dumped out two full bags of garbage in his room—nasty food lef
tovers, empty containers with random liquids, everything. Stephen had to clean up the entire mess by himself, re-bag it, and take it out. He was humiliated, and that’s when he adopted his own no-friends-over policy.

  For a long time following that incident, Dad would threaten me when he told me to take out the trash, saying, “And if you don’t take care of it, I’ll come dump it in your room. If you don’t believe me, just ask your brother.” I never wanted to take the chance to find out for myself, so I always made sure I took care of the garbage when he asked.

  The desire to stay away from my own home made going to my friends’ houses that much more important to me. Kent was the only person in my life whom I told everything that happened with my dad. Somehow I was okay with him knowing, because he never judged or looked down on me or made a big deal of it.

  Kent saw more than anyone else in those toughest years. Walking through that kind of fire with a buddy who knows your business and stands with you forms a unique, unbreakable bond.

  Kent and I made up two-thirds of what we called the Three Musketeers. We hung out all the time, went to church together, and constantly had a blast. So now it’s time to introduce you to the other third of that trio—and the sweetest and prettiest too.

  My Best (Girl) Friend

  Shannon Street’s parents were my second-grade Sunday school teachers. That’s how far back our relationship goes. In fact, they taught every second grader who came to First Baptist Greenville for twenty-two years. The story is told that one day after Sunday school, Shannon’s mom said to her family, “That Millard boy—I feel sorry for the girl who marries him. He is wild!”

  Shannon and I have gone to church together for as long as either one of us remembers. At that time, FBC had about three hundred members, so it was like a big family. There were no cliques, no hierarchy. Everyone got along and did life together.

  Shannon’s family was the opposite of mine. Her dad worked on federal government aircraft for Raytheon. His job was classified as top secret, so he could never talk about what he did from nine to five. They had a very conservative, very consistent home life. Their family ate dinner together every night at five thirty—on the dot. For me, they were a ready-made family. (Her parents are still happily married, by the way.)

  Shannon is two years younger than me, so until she was in junior high, we weren’t really on each other’s radar that much. But the summer before my freshman year in high school, she came into the youth group as a seventh grader. At Vacation Bible School, she played piano for the younger kids, and I ran the slide projector for the words. I thought she was awesome, and I was crazy about her. She doesn’t remember that, but it’s true.

  Shannon’s Side of the Story

  “Coming into the youth group that summer, I started noticing Bart and thought he was really kind and thoughtful. I was very reserved and quiet, so I was also drawn to his fun and adventurous personality. He always made people laugh and was a good leader. As crazy as it sounds to say now, I was thirteen that summer when I looked at him and thought to myself, That’s the guy I’m going to marry.”

  Our youth group, led by our incredible youth pastor and dear friend Rusty, went to Glorieta Baptist Camp in New Mexico each year. The first day there, we were given journals and taught how to write down our prayers, sermon notes, spiritual thoughts, dreams, and goals. Starting that first summer, journaling became an important dynamic in my spiritual growth.

  The first day, I noticed that Shannon was already writing and doodling in her journal. Then at some point it fell open. It was just lying there, staring up at me, with a message scrawled out in flowery prose as only a young girl can write: “I ♥ Bart Millard.”

  I stood there, trying to process what I had just seen and what this might mean. I thought, So . . . this girl likes me too, huh? Well, she hearts me. Cool.

  Here Shannon and I were, interested in each other and away together for an entire week. One night during free time, we were walking around the camp, away from the rest of the group. We stopped under a very old, large canopied tree. After a few awkward moments, we shared our first kiss together. It was July 1988. (Bookmark that detail for later.)

  We went steady that whole summer. Shannon, along with her parents, would come get me in their family car. I had my learner’s permit, so I would chauffeur the family around town for the rest of the evening. Her mom would get in the back seat, Shannon would slide next to me in the middle of the front seat, and her dad served as my copilot in the shotgun spot. I was joyriding with my girl . . . and her parents. I even drove them on a couple of road trips that summer—one to Shannon’s mom’s hometown and another to a rodeo. Thanks to her folks, I was good at driving by the time I could get my actual license.

  I spent a lot of time over at the Street family’s home. Shannon and her parents must have thought it was odd that Dad never checked on me, but they never said anything. Her parents treated me like a son, and her mom and I picked on each other a lot. We had a similar sense of humor, and it was great to have that kind of close interaction and camaraderie with a mother, even if she wasn’t my own.

  On our “dates,” Shannon’s dad would drop us off to get pizza or at the movies. There wasn’t a lot for kids to do in Greenville back then, so we just hung out a lot, together and with Kent, and talked for hours on the old landline phone when we weren’t together. (Can you believe we ever used phones that were connected to cords?)

  Shannon’s Side of the Story

  “Bart always hid what was going on at home with his dad. But everyone I knew was scared of Mr. Millard. One time at church, Bart put his arm around me during the service. His dad, who had been sitting somewhere behind us, saw what happened. He walked up after the service and, very seriously in a strong tone, told Bart to never do that again in church. That terrified me.”

  Later that same summer the youth choir went on a weeklong tour, singing at various churches. We all stayed with a family at a huge house on Lake Charles in Louisiana. The girls stayed inside, and the guys got to sleep on a large boat docked on the water behind the house. Shannon and I slipped away from everyone, and, standing there next to the moonlit water, we had our second kiss. (By now, you are probably wondering where all the church chaperones were on these trips, right? Ah, the innocence of those days.)

  When summer was over and I started high school as a freshman, I thought it might not be cool to date a junior high girl, so I broke up with Shannon. Yet we managed to stay friends, because that was always the foundation of our relationship. The unwritten teenage social laws have always stated you are supposed to hate each other after breaking up, but we never did. It also helped that our youth group was so close-knit and that our youth pastor was a common bond between us, offering accountability and encouragement.

  Shannon’s Side of the Story

  “After that first breakup, I always kept hope alive that things would work out with me and Bart. Plus, I noticed anytime we were around each other, he would show off and try to get my attention. This worked out great for me because I always wanted to be where he was. And, of course, we were always at church together.”

  By the time Shannon got to high school as a freshman, when I was a junior, our strong friendship had led us back into dating again. We hung out all the time, alone and also with Kent. No matter what was going on with Shannon and me in our relationship, the Three Musketeers managed to stay together.

  But then, at the beginning of my senior year, the vicious lack-of-commitment cycle circled back around again. I decided I didn’t want to date an underclassman, so I broke up with Shannon for the second time. (Do you ladies hate me yet? I admit I was a fickle jerk, okay?)

  Shannon’s Side of the Story

  “We were driving in the car when he started telling me about wanting to be able to focus on his senior year and date other people. I was heartbroken, but I decided to play it off like I was strong and he wasn’t getting to me this time. I said something like, ‘Yeah, I’ve actually been thinking about th
e same thing.’ When Bart thought that I was okay with the breakup, he told me that he wanted to play a joke on my mom where he would go up to the door, tell her he broke up with me, and say that I was completely devastated. Still in shock but trying to be brave, I agreed to it. So when we pulled up to the house, Bart played off the joke, and then told my mom he was only kidding. He assured her everything was fine, she laughed it off, and then he left. After he drove away, I told Mom the truth and then fell apart. I was really mad at him, and then so was she. That time, I thought I was done and I never wanted anything like that to happen to me again. But I was so confused because I really thought Bart was the one.”

  Shannon was my first girlfriend. She set the standard that no one else could measure up to. She was everything to me, and her family was everything my family wasn’t. She was so compassionate, with such a gentle spirit. She always cared about me when I felt no one else did, and she was always, always a great listener, which I so needed. I honestly have never known anyone quite like her. I guess that’s exactly why I could never find another girl to rival her, even though I tried. Every girl paled in comparison. And nobody could ever make me laugh like she could. No one in my life ever cared about me the way Shannon did.

  Because my home life made my middle school and high school years even more difficult than the typical teen struggles, I am so thankful for all the anchors—my two Mammaws, my youth group, my love of singing and music, Kent, and Shannon and her family—that God placed in my life. They all helped me hold fast to Him and find hope when I needed it the most. Little did I know I was about to need that support more than ever.