An inspiring new movie, based on a Christian musician’s relationship with an abusive father, took Hollywood by surprise last weekend when its box office debut scored $17 million, bested only by big name films Black Panther and Tomb Raider.
Writing for the Washington Times, Christian Toto gives a thumbs-up to the movie, I Can Only Imagine, which is based on the story of Bart Millard, the lead singer for the Christian rock band, Mercy Me. Millard found faith at a young age and used music to escape from a troubled home life with an abusive father who beat him three or four times a week. He would sometimes be so badly injured that he had to miss school because it was too painful to put on clothes.
But his father wasn’t always a monster, Millard told The Tennessean last month. Arthur Millard, Jr. had been a beloved home-town football hero who was nicknamed “Bub” because he was “more teddy than grizzly.”
One day, while flagging cars for the Texas highway department, Arthur was struck by a truck that put him in a coma for eight weeks. When he woke up, he was a different man – violent, crude, dark tempered.
As a result, his parents divorced when he was just three years old. Bart lived with his mother at first, but when she moved out of town with her third husband, he and his older brother moved in with Arthur. Life together was far from peaceful. The spankings were just a few pats on the bottom at first, but they grew more intense until they were outright beatings that left him in constant fear.
But after those beatings, his father would put him on his lap and apologize for losing his temper, then watch TV with him.
“While I didn’t always understand the severity of the punishment versus the actual crime,” Millard wrote in his book, I Can Only Imagine. “I still always savored those moments of father-and-son intimacy.”
Like all children, he longed to connect with his father and tried his hand at football as a way to impress him but a career-ending injury set him on a musical path instead. He started off in old tour bus with a band he called, MercyMe, after his grandmother’s favorite expression.
It wasn’t until his father was diagnosed with cancer that their relationship began to heal. Arthur admitted how proud he was of his son, how much he wanted him to pursue his musical career and even arranged for him to get $600 a month for 10 years to support himself and his dreams.
The real turning point came when his father returned to his faith. He became so devout that he would often fall asleep reading the Bible.
“If the gospel could change that guy,” Millard figured, “the gospel could change anybody.”
Sadly, Arthur died in 1991 and for the first time in his life, Bart got mad at God.
“I finally got the dad I wanted, and he left.”
At the gravesite, Bart’s grandmother said, “I can only imagine what Bub’s seeing now.”
The phrase stuck with him and he toyed with it for years before finally writing the song in 1998. I Can Only Imagine hit #1 on the Christian radio charts the same week that Bart received the last $600 check from his father. The song when triple-platinum in 2001.
The movie, based on this riveting story, was directed by the Erwin Brothers (October Baby, Moms’ Night Out, and Woodlawn) and stars J. Michael Finley, Madeline Carroll, Trace Adkins, Priscilla Shirer, with Cloris Leachman and Dennis Quaid.
As Toto reports, when it opened last weekend, it raked in $17 million, taking third place to Black Panther’s $26.7 million and Tomb Raider’s $23.6 million.
But this film tells a far different story – one of redemption and forgiveness that leaves the viewer full of hope that if God can change this family, He can change anything.
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