Mary Beth Chapman is married to Steven Curtis Chapman, who is a phenomenal Christian music artist.
The first song of his that I remember loving was the one he wrote to her called "I will be here."
I was single and in my early twenties,
and I remember wanting to find a husband that felt about me the way he obviously felt about her.
It was the first time they would influence my life from a distance.
{Go
here if you want to hear him sing that beautiful song about his commitment to his wife.}
I kind of half-way kept up with them through the years, and I loved watching their family go from
one child to three children to four children to six children.
I loved their hearts for adoption,
and I know that God used them in some way to plant a seed of desire in my own heart.
Fast forward many years, and we started our own journey to bring our daughter home from China.
Something I haven't shared with you is that the Chapman family played a major part in our story.
There isn't a right or wrong way to fund an adoption.
Some people take out loans and some people save every penny before they start.
Not us.
We knew that we didn't want to take out a loan...we were trying to do things the "
Dave Ramsey style."
But, we also knew that we didn't want to wait until every last penny was saved.
We wanted to start the process and trust God for provision as we went.
No matter what path you choose, it's all trusting God.
Anyway, we applied for their grant not knowing when we'd hear from them or even if we would.
Imagine our surprise when our adoption agency called us and informed us that we'd received $3500.
This family that I've never met had not only influenced our hearts for adoption
but had financially joined us in bringing her home.
We had been home from China with our daughter Lydia for five months
when tragedy hit the Chapman family.
Their youngest biological son, Will Franklin, had tragically hit
their youngest adopted daughter with his vehicle in their driveway.
She was running toward him to ask for help getting on the monkey bars, and he never saw her.
I joined thousands of people from all over the world who prayed and wept for this family.
I'd never met them, but my life had been so influenced by their marriage & family.
Mary Beth courageously wrote a book called "Choosing to See."
It is about their journey through the loss of their sweet Maria Sue.
She captures very honestly what it has been like to have this be part of their family's story.
You see how they determined together as a family to hold steadfast to their faith in God.
She writes about how loud their silent house became when Maria wasn't there anymore.
She tells countless stories of little Maria's life and how she impacted each person that met her.
Mary Beth affectionately refers to her as their "little nugget" and their "goofy goober girl."
You will laugh and you will most certainly cry.
Every truth this family ever stood on in their faith was tested with Maria's tragic, too-soon death.
She writes so vividly from her heart that you can almost feel the pain that they experienced in their loss.
Your heart will ache with them, and your faith will be challenged by theirs.
She tells a story of Steven finding a picture that Maria had been drawing before the accident.
It was the picture of a six-petaled flower with a green stem and two leaves.
Only one of the petals was colored blue, which was Maria's favorite color.
The center was painted orange.
He saw something bleeding through the other side of the paper.
Ends up, she had also drawn a butterfly and the word SEE.
Mary Beth knows that it was no coincidence that the flower had 6 petals,
and that only one petal was colored in.
Blue. Maria's favorite color.
They have 6 children, and only one has gone to be with the one who made her.
This family is choosing to SEE that heaven is real and the gospel is true.
You will cherish how this family finds hope in the midst of asking God the hard questions.
Shattered dreams are never random.
They are always a piece in a larger puzzle, a chapter in a larger story.
The Holy Spirit uses the pain of shattered dreams to help us discover our desire for God,
to help us begin dreaming the highest dream.
They are ordained opportunities for the Spirit to awaken, then to satisfy our highest dream.
~Larry Crabb
{taken from "Choosing to SEE"}
56. dinner with a new friend tonight.
57. clean sheets on all the beds.
58. a new hair cut
59. wooden building blocks that have occupied my kids for five weeks.
