MercyMe's lead singer Bart Millard has a lot of emotional attachment to the song "Dear Younger Me," taken off their brand new album Welcome to the New.
In an interview with Guideposts, Millard said that the song was one of the hardest he ever had to write, but once finished, it enabled him to break free from past hurts and difficulties.
He shared that he and his wife have gone through grief counselling for several years, especially after her brother was killed back in 2004. "We probably never dealt with it the proper way, so we went to grief counselling a few years ago and one of the first things the counsellor said to me was 'We need to go back into your childhood and unpack that,'" he said.
Millard said that he grew up in an abusive home, and his father was very difficult to deal with until he was diagnosed with cancer during the singer's freshman year of high school. After his diagnosis, he came to know Jesus Christ and Millard said his father surprisingly became "one of the godliest men" he ever knew.
"But there's a lot of damage done, a lot of feeling like it's your fault," he said. So his counsellor advised him to look at his own son Charlie instead in order to know "what you would've been like in a healthy family and a God-like environment."
The singer began thinking what he would say to the eight-year-old version of himself, if he had the chance. So he began writing "Dear Younger Me." And while the writing process was difficult for Millard, he felt that it was worth it because not only did he feel free afterwards, he even helped other people face their troubled pasts as well.
"A lot of people carry those issues with them, they carry that guilt and shame around their neck like it's part of them. That one is particularly special because of the response that we've had. I've gotten emails from people saying, 'This has broken me free of something that I've carried a long time,' so, that's really cool," he said.
