A Prodigal Son Who Wandered 20 Years & Found The Savior Waiting for Him (with Jeremiah Cronin)

The bicycle hung over the edge of the canal. A nineteen-year-old missionary stood beside the water in Monterrey, Mexico, sweat soaking through his shirt, ready to throw the bike in, call a cab, and head for the airport. Nobody wanted to listen. Every door had closed. He was done. And then a question stopped his hands before they let go. If he quit right now, what would he say to God and to Jesus Christ on the other side of this life? Would he really stand before the Savior who suffered in Gethsemane and tell Him that the rejection of strangers had been too much to bear?

That young missionary was Jeremiah Cronin. He did not throw the bike in the canal. He knocked on the next door instead. He had no way of knowing then that the choice he made beside that canal would become an anchor he would reach for again and again across the hardest twenty years of his life, years when the question would no longer be whether he could finish a mission, but whether he could ever find his way back to God at all.

In this episode of Why We Believe, host Nathan Gwilliam sits down with Jeremiah for a conversation about wandering and return. It is a story most people never hear told out loud, the story of a man who walked away from everything he had been raised to believe, lost almost two decades to that drift, and discovered that the road home runs in exactly the same direction as the road out.

A Testimony Earned on His Knees

Jeremiah was born in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Church every Sunday, family home evening most Mondays, family scripture study, family prayer. It was simply who his family was and what they did. But somewhere around the age of sixteen, getting ready to leave his friends and family for a two-year mission, a thought stopped him cold. He had done all of this his entire life and had never once asked God if any of it was true.

So he knelt down and asked. He told his Heavenly Father he needed to know that the Savior was real, that the Atonement was true, and that the path in front of him was worth walking. The answer came over him like a warm quilt thrown across his shoulders, a feeling of love and reality so complete that he wished everyone could feel it. From that day, the gospel was no longer something he had inherited. It was something he knew for himself.

That witness carried him to Monterrey, and it carried him through the canal. It would have to carry him much further than he expected because the testimony he earned at sixteen would soon be tested by a long silence of his own making.

The Slow Drift Away

In the Church, members often speak of learning gospel truths line upon line, precept upon precept. Jeremiah came to understand that falling away happens the very same way, one small thing at a time. He came home from his mission to a new town in Arizona where he knew no one. His siblings were busy building their own lives. He no longer had weekly planning meetings, no longer felt the structure that had held him steady.

So he let go of small things. He stopped reading his scriptures as diligently. He prayed less. None of it was dramatic, and none of it felt like a decision at the time. But the small steps cascaded over years, one leading to the next, until he found himself far from the faith he had once known for certain. Eventually, his choices led to disciplinary action and, in time, to excommunication.

The hardest part did not come in the council room. It came the morning after. Jeremiah woke in his parents' home and heard his father weeping in the living room, grieving over the choices his son had made. In that sound, he understood something he had never let himself feel before. If his earthly father could hurt this much over him, how must his Heavenly Father feel? It is the kind of realization that can either crush a person or call him home. For Jeremiah, it planted a seed that would take years to grow.

At the Lowest Point

The next twenty years were not a straight line down, but they were dark. There were two marriages that ended, jealousy and shame, an addiction he fought and lost and fought again. There was a stretch so low that Jeremiah believed the people he loved would be better off without him in the world at all. In that moment, the Lord pressed a truth into his mind that he could not argue with. His children did not deserve to lose their father that way. His wife did not deserve it. His best friend and her children did not deserve it. He was worth saving, and the people who loved him needed him to stay.

Even in those years, grace found him. At the height of what he calls his riotous living, before he and his future wife Kaylee were even dating, the two of them pulled into the parking lot of the Gilbert Arizona Temple late at night. Standing there in the dark, words left Jeremiah's mouth before he could stop them. This is where you and I will be sealed for time and all eternity. He tried to take it back, embarrassed, only to feel the Spirit tell him plainly to be still, that he had said it right the first time. God had already seen the man Jeremiah would one day become, years before he became him.

The Long Road Home

The road back was every bit as gradual as the road out. It began with desire, with a wife who refused to condemn him. When Jeremiah confessed yet another relapse, bracing for the anger he had known in past relationships, Kaylee instead asked how she could help him do better, how they could get through it together. He was speechless. The change came through counselors, addiction programs, a trusted therapist, and above all through a Savior who measures progress rather than perfection.

When the understanding finally settled in his heart that God does not demand a flawless life but a faithful effort, the shame that had bound him for years began to loosen. He worked toward worthiness one honest day at a time. The path eventually led to a letter from the First Presidency authorizing the restoration of his priesthood, a letter Satan had whispered would never come. And it led to a temple, where Jeremiah saw his wife in white and understood that nothing in his old life could come close to what he felt in that sealing room.

Jeremiah's blessings have continued to multiply since his return, including another son and the quiet assurance of the Spirit when his father-in-law passed away suddenly. He now serves in his ward and carries a witness shaped by everything he lost and everything he found again. As Jeremiah puts it, after seeing his life both with and without the Spirit, he simply can't not believe.

Key Takeaways

Jeremiah's story teaches that everything worth having tends to wait on the far side of something hard, and that the things most worth keeping are the things most worth fighting for. It reminds us that we wander from Christ one small choice at a time, and that we return to Him in exactly that same way, one step after another. His witness affirms that God never asked for perfection from any of us, only for the daily progress that an honest effort makes possible, and that He loves that effort. The love of a faithful spouse, Jeremiah learned, can become a compass that points a wandering heart back toward the Savior. And above all, his life stands as evidence that no history is ever too complicated and no soul ever too far gone for Jesus Christ to reach, because He is in relentless pursuit of every one of His children who has wandered away.

Thank you for reading this week's blog post, inspired by the Why We Believe show. If you are interested in more stories like this, you can check out our other blog posts and episodes at WhyWeBelieve.com. Leave a review for Why We Believe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Your support helps us bring more inspiring conversations like this to listeners everywhere!

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