Good morning…
I have a dear friend who sends me wise quotes. During this time of great grief, she sent me two sacred sentences, filled with grace and tender with truth. She texted, “I think of a Stephen Curtis Chapman quote when they lost their daughter: ‘We have been to the bottom and have found it to be solid.'”
She added with hope, “The Lord redeems what He allows.”
In these quiet moments, I think of the song Cinderella by Chapman, a song with a very painful history.
******
Cinderella, the history of the 2007 song by Christian singer Stephen Curtis Chapman from Wikipedia
The song “Cinderella” was written by Steven Curtis Chapman one night after bathing his two youngest daughters – Stevey Joy and Maria Sue – and putting them to bed. He remembers that the girls were stalling him, putting on their Cinderella gowns, and he was trying to hurry them so he could put them to bed and go to his studio to work. Chapman says he even refused to read them a story that night. But after walking out, he says he felt God telling him the name “Emily Chapman”, his eldest daughter, who was in her twenties. Steven remembered how he had rushed through some moments in Emily’s childhood because of his career, and remembered how he now had a chance to not do it again with his younger daughters. He then felt guilty for neglecting them and started writing the song to remind himself to cherish the moments he could with his family, no matter how brief they might be:
“Emily is now 20 years old … she’s grown up. I used to have these moments with her, you know, tuck her in bed every night, when I was home; you know, bath time, story time […] and it went by like that. And I rushed through a lot of those moments with her, trying to get back up to my studio to write […] But I thought ‘Man, it goes by so fast’ and my wife and I have the luxury of having a grown daughter, and almost grown sons, and now we get a chance to do it again. Are we gonna do the same thing? are we gonna run through those moments? or am I gonna have enough sense to stop and slow down in those moments… even if they’re just gonna be a few extra moments, just enjoy it, and let my little girls know that I’ve not rush through it.” — Steven Curtis Chapman
Chapman says he wrote the song in about an hour, which was unusual for him. Chapman says that his daughters thought it was “the greatest song ever written, because it was inspired by them, but mostly because it had the name ‘Cinderella’.”
Several months later, in May 2008, Chapman’s youngest daughter Maria Sue died as a result of an accident in the Chapmans’ driveway, and the song took on a whole new meaning for the Chapman family. While the song had originally been written as a message to love and cherish parenthood while it lasted, it acquired another message of the frailty of life and how suddenly it can change. After his daughter’s death, Chapman had said he was “pretty sure [he] would never sing the song again”. On July 11, while singing on stage, he felt God talking to him through all his songs, confronting him. Chapman felt that he needed to believe in the hope he proclaims in his songs, and bring that hope to others by singing the song.
******
So many across the globe have been to the bottom this week, this month, this year. May we each feel the solid hope of God planted at the bottom of our hurting hearts. Keep vigilant watch over your heart; that’s where life starts (Proverbs 4:25, MSG).
With our loving Lord at home in our hearts, we eventually learn to start dancing again.
…Sue…
