The Song a Broken Father Made Possible

In 1991, a teenager named Bart Millard was carrying scars — literal and otherwise — from years of abuse at the hands of his father, Arthur. The elder Millard had been a violent man, prone to fits of rage that left bruises on his son's body and deeper wounds on his soul. By every human measure, the relationship was beyond saving.

Then Arthur Millard was diagnosed with cancer. And somewhere in the crucible of that diagnosis, he surrendered his life to Christ. What happened next defied every expectation. The man who had terrorized his family became, in Bart's own words, "the greatest man I ever knew." Arthur spent his remaining years tender, repentant, and overflowing with a love that had no earthly explanation. When he died in 1991, Bart grieved not the father who had hurt him, but the father who had been utterly remade.

The grief and wonder of that transformation poured out years later in a song called I Can Only Imagine — a quiet hymn that became the best-selling Christian single in history. Millions heard it as a song about heaven. Bart knew it was really a song about what he had already witnessed: a human soul so ravaged by sin that only the Almighty could rebuild it.

That is the scandal of redemption. El Shaddai does not merely forgive the past — He rewrites the story entirely. No one is too far gone. Not Arthur Millard. Not you. Not anyone sitting in your pew this morning.