Free The Whitney I Knew by BeBe Winans, Timothy Willard Page B

Whitney baring her soul. It was Whitney harking back to the Rock from which she was hewn and resting in the peace she gained from that Rock.
    It’s the place she always wanted to be.
    When you listen to Whitney’s 2009 interview with Oprah, she references that place of peace. By the time her marriage had fallen apart and things were off the rails with her drug abuse, she knewshe had steered off course. But she also understood that there was a divine grace that longed to help her get back on course.
    I remember the day Whitney made a public faith proclamation. CeCe and I were in a Nashville church with her. The preacher gave an altar call—the part of the service where he invites folks in the audience to make a commitment to follow Jesus. Without either of us knowing or being aware of what she was doing, Whitney stepped out from her seat, walked to the front of the sanctuary, and gave her life to the Lord that night.
    Her boldness knew no bounds, for she was “Whitney” at this time—someone so well-known that, really, a person didn’t even have to say her last name. This wasn’t pre-stardom, I-knew-you-when stuff.
    What about her image? What about the tabloids and the rumors? None of that mattered to her at that moment. Though she was raised in the church, she had never professed her faith in Jesus as an adult. Seeing her up front at that Nashville church, praying with the pastor—that was one of the first memories that sprung into my mind when she left us. I can see her now up at that altar, kneeling and praying.
    Her faith was real to her. She took it seriously. And lyrics like the ones from my brother Marvin’s song “In Return” were what Whitney would use in the gospel section of her concert set to tell her story. GO TO TheWhitneyIKnewVideos.com TO VIEW THIS AND OTHER BONUS MATERIAL.
    All I had to give was a broken heart, all torn apart
    All I had to give was an empty hope and promises
    But in return, he gave me joy that could never be told
    And in return he gave me love that is more precious than any gold
    So whatever you have to give, you don’t have to be ashamed
    Just come as you are, and present it in Jesus’ name
    For in return of a torn life, he’ll give you life abundantly
    And in return of a raging storm, the Lord will calm the seas
 . . .
    And if you were like me, you didn’t have a lot of gold
    Position or money. You didn’t own wealth untold
    But Lord, I’m glad you didn’t look on the things that I had
    But you looked on the things that you were able to give me
    The beauty of lyrics like these is that they don’t just tell Whitney’s story—they describe my story and yours, if we let them.
    Whitney sang “In Return” as far back as 1991, never suspecting that only two years later, in 1993, her world would explode yet again with the release of
The Bodyguard
soundtrack and movie. The soundtrack—one of the ten best-selling albums of all time at her passing—included the single “I Will Always Love You,” which to this day is the top-selling US single of all time. It catapulted someone who was already an international superstar into another stratosphere altogether. Her life became the property of the world and her voice America’s treasure. When she sang, “And in the midst of a raging storm, the Lord will calm the seas,” there was no way she could’ve known that her life would become a raging storm and she would be lost on those waters for a time.
    The “Jesus Loves Me” single, which was on that record-breaking
Bodyguard
album, released in 1993. Fittingly, we recorded that song in Whitney’s studio, which was located on the lower level of her home, down the hall from her trophy room. Since the studio was infull use, audio techs and other hired personnel were in and out of the house—though they only had access to that one area. In order to have free roam of