Steven Curtis Chapman After Daughter’s Death: ‘God Has Been Faithful Still’
By Movieguide® Contributor
Christian musician Steven Curtis Chapman is reflecting on the tragic death of his daughter 14 years ago and how it has influenced his music and his faith.
Chapman and his wife, Mary Beth, adopted Maria Sue from China in 2004. Just a few years later, the 5 year-old was struck by an ATV driven by one of the Chapmans’ sons and died.
The singer shared his grief and heartbreak through his music, something that he said was a family decision.
“Because when I’m sharing my story, I’m really sharing my family’s story,” Chapman explained. “I’m sharing my wife’s journey alongside me. So it’s been a decision that we’ve made together, but it really has been also just — I feel like it’s part of what the calling [God has placed on my life] has been.”
The singer-songwriter shared that he finds the most comfort in Old and New Testament stories of people who overcame great struggles and defeats.
“The story of Peter, you know, walking on the water — it’s not just the story of him, ‘Man, he walked on the water,’” Chapman said. “What I’m encouraged by is the fact that he sank and he took his eyes off Jesus and he freaked out and he feared and Jesus pulled him up and he learned from that process.”
He continued, “I’m so glad that God didn’t edit out those vulnerable places in the lives of even His followers in Scripture. In fact, He let some of those most vulnerable failures be written right into the story, and that gives such encouragement to me. … Even as I’ve had this platform and this opportunity, it’s been very important that I stay very honest and that’s really the only thing I have to offer, anyway, is just the honesty through my music and my songs.”
His new song, “Still,” tells Chapman’s experiences with the ups and downs of life, and how God has always remained in his life.
“I have wrestled, I have rested, I have trusted, I have tested God’s patience,” Chapman explained. “It’s been beautiful, it’s been terrible, it’s been wonderful, it’s been more painful, it’s been all of those things, and yet, here’s the bottom line: God has been faithful still and God has good still, even when life has not been.”
“That word ‘still’ just became so special to me and I thought, ‘I really want to write a song by that title and just talk about all those things because God is still faithful,’” he concluded.
Movieguide® previously reported on Chapman’s music:
Christian singer Steven Curtis Chapman recently shared about his past success in the music industry and how God used that for His glory.
“[I] didn’t start writing songs thinking, ‘Hey, maybe I can have a career in this,’” Chapman told Faithwire in a new interview. “I started writing songs in high school because I had read some things in the Bible that were really sort of stirring in me, and I thought, ‘I want to process that. I want to talk to somebody about that.’”
Chapman, who is currently on tour with his “An Evening With Steven Curtis Chapman” concert series, said he is grateful to continue making and sharing his music.
“The music I am blessed to get to write and share has this incredible forward-remembering of what’s to come, and the promises of God and the hope we need so much right now,” Chapman explained. “Never have we needed it more, I feel like, in our world. The pandemic and all the unrest and now war going on in our world.”
Even though the musician has been writing songs and making albums for almost four decades, Chapman said he isn’t finished yet.
“As long as I’m breathing, I think songs are going to come,” he said. “I’m going to want to have that conversation with people and be able to think, ‘Here’s what I’m thinking, here’s what … I’m being encouraged with.”