Return to Me with all your heart... —Joel2:12 (nas)
I’ve wondered through the years if I could have done anything in my son Jeremy’s life during his childhood to have made a difference. Probably not. Decades of addictions and then bipolar disease made life difficult.
Jeremy stopped by our house recently. I had just obtained a recording of one of my all-time favorite songs, “I Have Returned” by Kenneth Copeland, and I had no idea Jeremy had come in. He stood quietly watching me swaying back and forth with my eyes closed, listening to the powerful words that spilled out into our living room. When it was over, I opened my eyes. “Oh, I didn’t know you were there.”
“I was just remembering.”
“Remembering what?”
“When I was a child, you played that song a lot. For years. The words sunk deeply into me—the beat of the music. Finally, as an adult, I had to do what the song says. It’s a big part of my turnaround. I love it. Play it again, Mom.”
Jeremy and I sat on the sofa, close together, and listened: “I have returned to the God of my childhood/To the same simple faith as a child I once knew/Like a prodigal son, I longed for my loved ones/For the comforts of home/And the God I outgrew/I have returned to the God of my childhood/Bethlehem’s babe/The prophet’s Messiah/He’s Jesus to me ....”
