Steven Curtis Chapman is a consummate gospel musician and poetic storyteller who continually reaches out to lives of millions of fans around the world with soul-stirring songs for three decades now.
For the 30 years, the industry mainstay has given believers such great hits as “For the Sake of the Call” (1990), “The Great Adventure” (1992), “Let Us Pray” (1996), “Dive” (1999), “I Will Not Go Quietly” (1998), “Live Out Loud” (2001), “God is God” (2001), “Cinderella” (2008), “Glorious Unfolding” (2013) … (the list could go on and on).
Chapman’s youngest daughter, died May 2008 from injuries sustained when a sports utility vehicle hit her in the driveway of the family’s home near Franklin, Tennessee. She was 5.
The girl was struck by a Toyota Land Cruiser driven by one of her teenage brothers whose identity was not released. This incident actually led to the song ‘Cinderella’
In a recent interview with CBN , Steven shared his emotional thoughts on the daughter’s death and how it all gave him a greater appreciation of worship music. We do hope you obtain encouragement from his testimony.
On how daughter Maria’s death brought him to a dark place and how faith brought him back…
Chapman: I felt myself go into this dark—I call it a “black hole” just of despair and confusion, and grief. As I felt myself falling into that place, I remember just taking a breath and the only clear thought that I could have as I was trying to grasp for… ‘Where’s the anchor? What am I going to hold onto right now?’ I remember just thinking, ‘I have to say and I have to declare this “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
‘God, I am going to trust you and I’m going to bless your name. I’m going to worship you.’ Immediately, I began to just sing, although I really couldn’t sing and I just would whisper it. I would think it. I would scream it sometimes, go where nobody could hear me and literally just scream it as loud as I could because I felt like I was screaming into a hurricane that was just going to take me out. I would just say, ‘You give. You take away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.’ And that song that my dear friend Matt Redman wrote, “Blessed Be Your Name”, became just a lifeline for me. It became an anchor.
The scripture talks about we have this hope as an anchor, and I just felt like these tsunami waves that were going to destroy me, and I really thought that even if they do destroy me, I’m going to go out saying this. I’m going to go out declaring this, that, ‘God, I’m going to trust you. I’m going to bless Your name. I’m going to worship you and trust that You are God and that You are sovereign, and that You are good, and that You’re with me and You’re with my family.
On how Matt Redman’s “Blessed Be Your Name” being sung at Maria’s funeral led to a greater appreciation of worship music…
Chapman: That was a doorway for me into a much deeper understanding of the power and the purpose of what I would call worship music – declarative, music, songs that proclaim the truth of God’s Word, that we can sing and repeat and marinate in…this is what’s true, even regardless of our circumstances.
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On how difficult it was to sing on tour after Maria’s death…
Chapman: I’m singing these songs by faith. I’m not singing them because I have a full understanding of them and I’m not singing them from a place of…’hey, I’ve got this figured out.’ But it’s a place of faith that, ‘God, I’m choosing to proclaim, declare these things to be true.’ The more I would do that the more I felt like I had oxygen in my lungs, the more I felt like I had hope in my heart to sing it even louder the next burst. And it’s like this wind in my sails.
Some nights, I couldn’t even sing, just tears streaming down my face. But, I could put my hands in the air and sometimes even my fist in the air saying, ‘this is what’s true. This is what I believe, it’s that God is faithful, that God is with us, that God is good.’ So that was the backdrop for me of really connecting deeper, and even beginning to lead worship from a different place. When I would do concerts, I would include at every concert a song that just declared, how great is our God. He is mighty to save. He’s conquered death. He’s conquered the grave. I’m going to bless His name even when I don’t understand, when circumstances are good, when He gives, when He takes away.
editor@ugchristiannews.com
