Rising from the Valley of Death | Music

Free Newsletters:

RSS Feeds |

Audio |

Twitter

Home > Music > Interviews > 2009

Rising from the Valley of Death

Steven Curtis Chapman opens up about losing his daughter, their family's arduous journey, and a new album of songs chronicling the path of pain and hope.

Interview by Mark Moring | posted 11/02/2009

4 of 4

Ain't feeling it.

Right. Ain't feeling it at all. I'm just not sure. I needed to hear my pastor speak truth again to me. I needed to hear somebody say again, here's what's true.

That has been an important process, the whole thing of taking every thought captive and saying, God, this is what I choose to believe. Because I've found myself, especially in the first few days and weeks after Maria went to heaven—and there's still moments of this—that I could almost feel myself being sucked into this black hole of doubt and despair. Of saying, "God, if I let myself keep going in this direction, there seems to be no bottom, no end to this, and I'll never be able to escape from it."

At the hospital at Vanderbilt, literally within an hour of knowing that my little girl was in heaven with Jesus, I found myself having to make a choice, when I would start to feel myself and everything in me being sucked into this place, this abyss. I would begin to say, "Blessed be the name of the Lord. You give. You take away. But, God, I trust you. I trust you. You are faithful. You are good. I trust you. I trust you." And as I would say that, literally just choose to make that declaration in the midst of this, I would almost physically feel myself being pulled back from that place. And I'd start to breathe again.

But it wouldn't be long before I would go, "But, God, what? How could this happen? How are we ever going to survive?" And it's like here I go back into that black, dark place.

But there was a grace to even recognize that you were falling into that place.

Yes. That is the grace and the gift of God to be able, in that process, to make that choice. That's the crazy theology of all that—to even be able to make that choice to say, "God, I trust you," that is a gift of grace. But we're making that choice over and over again.

Read more about Steven Curtis Chapman at his official website, and about their adoption aid agency, Show Hope, here. Read more about Maria here.

first page |

4 of 4

E-mail this page

Write CT

Print this article

Post a comment

Reader Reviews are below

Subscribe to Christianity Today and get 3 free trial issues. No credit card required.

Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery. Offer valid in U.S. only.

If you decide you want to keep Christianity Today coming, honor your invoice for just $19.95 and receive nine more issues, a full year in all. If not, simply write "cancel" across the invoice and return it. The three trial issues are yours to keep, regardless.

Click here for international orders

2-for-1 Gifts!

[Reader Reviews]

Average User Rating:

Displaying 1 - 3 of 20 comments.

See all comments

Cheri

Posted: November 10, 2009 6:35 PM

I read with great interest and heartfelt empathy to Steve talking about losing Maria. I too, have a daughter who went to be with the Lord at age 29, just six years ago. I don't think I let myself grieve until just recently, I kept telling myself she was with her Father who loves her unconditionally. I knew where she went and whose she was. But, I just put a wall and was there for others but wouldn't let grief touch that secret place in my heart. Only recently, when a new friend shared that she understood how I felt -- not ever hearing her call me "Mama" again, and having a deep void where there was always a fullness of her presence, and I realized my heart was breaking. I like David, pled with the Lord to spare her life but after she died, I got up from her room and couldn't watch as they took her out of our home. I had no where to go this time. The wall began to crumble and the tears flowed as they hadn't since her death. His healing has begun.

Monica G

Posted: November 08, 2009 9:18 PM

God be with the Chapman's as they walk through their grief. How terrible for them. It is a very dark place and I pray that they will be embraced by their community and the church. I have never lost a child but I have experienced what is considered to be catastrophic loss. I learned many things through my experience of grief but the most significant was the grace that is hidden in our greatest sufferings. I agree wholeheartedly about Sittser's book and recommend it to anyone walking through this darkness. It was the most helpful book on grief I ever read. It really describes the landscape of this level of grief and offers real hope. I found so many books on loss were superficial and unhelpful. Sittser's book was real and raw and refreshing in its honesty. I think it was this honesty that helped me the most.

Joy	Posted: November 08, 2009 12:08 PM

I agree with the posters who wonder about the son who accidentally hit the child. Words can not express the catastrophic impact that losing a loved one has on your life. And especially losing a child, one who has so much promise, it is simply devasting. My heart goes out to the Chapman family. However, the son is going through his own personal hell, and I pray that he is able to receive God's love and forgiveness in the midst of the unbearable grief that he must be going through.

The allotted time for commenting has ended.

[Browse More Christianity Today]