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Steven and Mary Beth with a baby at Maria's Big House

One of the most tangible ways you've seen beauty rise is with Maria's Big House of Hope [a new healing home in China for special-needs kids, named for Maria]. I can't imagine how that makes you and Mary Beth feel, to see that facility as part of Maria's legacy.

Maria's Big House of Hope and Show Hope [the Chapmans' adoption aid agency], that's the tangible of all of that for us, because it represents so much pain and hope mixed together. When we walked through the doors of that place to do the grand opening, we stood there and just wept for the longest time, because there's some part of you going, I never wanted a Maria's Big House of Hope to exist. I want Maria here, and I want her at home in my home. So much of what makes it so profoundly special and important is the fact that it cost so much for it to have this impact. Even the impact it's having in China has been big. All these Chinese government officials came, and they know why it's named Maria's Big House. They know we've lost a daughter, and they know she's Chinese.

The next morning I'm walking down the streets of Luoyang, China, and they have these newspaper stands where you can read the daily paper. And every one of them, front and center, has the story of Maria's Big House of Hope and me standing there singing. They've got the whole story of why it is there, what it's doing, and even the lyrics to the song "Yours" that I sang at the opening—including the verse about how we've walked the valley of death's shadow, the verse I wrote after Maria went to heaven.

But yeah, Maria's Big House has been an incredible gift from God for us, a place that we've been able to pour our hearts into—a tangible thing that we get to see and touch and feel and taste that God is doing out of this.

The song "Faithful" includes the line "I am choosing to believe." That's a hard choice, especially when you're wondering where God is through this. Did you and Mary Beth ever shake your fists at God, or even consider turning your backs on him?

Gosh, how to do justice to the depth of that question. I could talk about it for two years and not even scratch the surface. But I'll refer again to the Psalms, specifically those where David is crying out, God, how long before you take away this pain, before you right these wrongs? And then almost in mid-despair, you get this sense of David literally making the choice, again, in saying to his own soul, Why are you so downcast within me? Remember this. Hope in God. Trust in God. This is your anchor. I've used that analogy, too, so many times—having this hope as an anchor.

The Chapmans have two older adopted Chinese girls, Shaohannah and Stevey Joy

We've come to realize dropping that anchor has been, and will continue to be, a daily, sometimes an hourly, process. It's not a one time thing: I've dropped that anchor. It's, man, wait a minute, I'm getting blown away here by the hurricane of grief and questions and doubt. What am I going to do? Am I just going to drift out to sea? Or am I going to drop the anchor again?

We have absolutely questioned God and had our doubts and said, "Is this whole thing true? Is this real?" I sat on our tour bus last summer and called Scotty Smith, my pastor, after spending a very difficult night of wrestling with God. We were getting ready to go do an interview with People magazine or Larry King or somebody, and I was just in tears, calling my pastor and saying, "Is it really true? Is it really true? Can God be trusted?" I'm getting ready to drive this stake in the ground again with people and say it, but I really …

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