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Dear Mr. Chapman

I’ve been a fan of yours since I was a young Christian. My first album was The Live Adventure; I chose it because it seemed to have the most songs on it. I remember listening to Heaven in the Real World in my freshman dorm room. I saw you in concert a long time ago, and I think I’ve gotten almost every album you’ve done since then. My husband and I danced to “I Will Be Here” at my wedding. (I think he used to be a little jealous of my mysterious enthusiasm for you, but eventually he grew fond of your music too.)

I really admire your skill with words and how I can always see growth and change both in your personal walk and in your musical skills. I’m not a “crazy fan” type of person; I don’t write letters to celebrities or keep up with their personal lives. However, I’ve been writing this letter to you in my head for a year or so now, so I figured, tell you now or wait for heaven…so I hope what I say is an encouragement to you here and now.

I was only vaguely aware of your family. I knew you had kids, and adopted some, too. Like I said, I’m not really into your personal life. When the tragedy happened with your little daughter, I can’t remember how I found out; I was in the midst of my own family crisis at the time, so to be honest I felt sad, but I didn’t really have time to dwell on it much.

At that time in my life I was taking care of my firstborn, my precious son James, who was unexpectedly born very small with many disabilities. His brain did not form properly early on, and that threw off a lot of his other systems. He had diabetes, digestive problems, a dead pituitary gland, partial hearing, and a lot of physical and mental delays. He was in the hospital the first 135 days of his life, and had several shots a day most of that time. Once I learned to give him shots, monitor his diabetes, and feed him through his stomach tube, we got to take him home. He weighed 5.5 lbs. at 4.5 mo. old. He needed care around the clock; we even had a night nurse so I could rest at night.

There was no one in the world like James. Medically speaking, no one with his combination of problems was ever recorded before; but his irresistible personality made him really unusual. He didn’t play with toys much; he couldn’t sit up alone or use his hands well; but he loved to look at faces, and his smile was just incandescent. He connected with people in an amazing way. Although he endured constant discomfort from his unpredictable blood sugars, painful digestive gas, and several blood sugar pricks and shots a day, he didn’t fuss very much. He displayed a lot of bravery and patience, and enduring love, considering that the people who cared for him had to stick needles in him every day.

Statistically he didn’t have a great chance of walking, talking, or using his hands, so we did a lot of therapy to help as much as we could. Every morning while I put him through his exercises we listened to a playlist of energetic songs that I felt encouraged me to believe God for big things. I named the list James’s Morning Songs. There were 25 tracks on that list, and Mr. Chapman, eight of them were yours: “Believe Me Now,” ” Declaration of Dependence,” “Whatever,” “Dive,” “11-6-64,” “Only Getting Started,” “Great Expectations,” and “Still Listening.” If for nothing else, I want to thank you for encouraging my faith during a very difficult time, a time when I didn’t see James improving much, when I was tempted to be bitter about the past and fearful when I looked into the future, and a time when I miscarried our second child and lost that hope as well. Through reminding me of His character through Scripture and your music, God encouraged me to trust Him no matter how dark things seemed.

You have probably noticed that I’m referring to James in the past tense. We knew that he wasn’t expected to live long; but after his first birthday we started to think that he might be past the hard part. He was able to go through the night without a nurse; he had an insulin pump and a hearing aid. Thanks to all his work in therapy, he was standing with help and starting to try and walk!

James was 482 days old when I found him, lifeless, in his crib. All the stress his body was constantly under finally caught up with him. He died on 8-20-08, and the life verse we chose for him before he was born—one that God challenged us to believe over and over—was Romans 8:28.

Later that week on the radio I heard the verse you added to the song, “It’s All Yours.” At first I wasn’t sure it was you; the voice sounded so raw compared to your normal recordings. Then as I listened closely, I remembered what had happened to your family and I realized that you were singing about the same valley that I was in right then. I felt relieved and blessed that I had this common bond with another Christian, even though it was a sad bond.

This feeling of connection was nothing compared to the shock I felt at hearing “Heaven is the Face” months later. You put into words exactly what I felt after my son died…I was ready to be done with life and go to heaven and be with him. I felt sheepish that, as a Christian who loves Jesus, I wanted to see someone else as much as Him in heaven, but at that time…I just wanted to hold my little son again and feel him nibble on my shoulder. I wanted to see his smile that lit up his eyes, and I wanted to know if he could fly, and hear, or whether God somehow retained yet transformed disability in a more glorious way than by just fixing it all.

My husband and I listened to Beauty Will Rise together from start to finish early this year, tears of empathy streaming down our faces. I don’t know how “popular” it is compared to your other albums, but we want you to know we felt tremendously honored and encouraged to listen in on your journey of grief and faith and hope—a journey we completely identified with. As we prepare to remember James’s third birthday next week, it seemed like a good time to thank you.

So, thank you for being public and transparent with your emotions and struggles to understand how a loving God could allow personal tragedies to happen. You expressed in 50 minutes what it took us months and years to write about on our blog about James (www.sweetbabyjames.info). We admire (and share) your fight for faith, your struggle for joy, and your wrestling for true, honest words. And we believe that God will bring beauty from your family’s ashes, just as we are confident, by God’s grace, that He is working all things to our good because we love Him and we are called according to His purpose.

in Christ our hope,

Abby Gjertsen

14 thoughts on “Dear Mr. Chapman”

  1. Thanks for sharing your honest feelings. I’m sure S. C. Chapman will be blessed as I was. Praying for you right now. Happy Birthday, James. We loved you dearly.

  2. Thank you so much for sharing your heart! Hope that S. C. reads this…I know he would be blessed. So thankful that God is faithful and gave you many songs for your heart. You are in my prayers!

  3. Thank you for sharing God’s joy in the midst of human sorrow, God’s eternal life in the midst of our physical death, the Lord’s hope in the midst of our struggles, His strength in the midst of our pain. James brought such a flood of joy when you peered into his eyes and he flashed a huge smile back at you. We saw Christ in you, the hope of glory. Love and Miss You!

  4. I’ll never forget that last Monday of his life when I got to spend time with him at your house. I”ll always be thankful God worked that out. I witnessed his usual happiness and smiles, and his standing up etc. that day. Thank you for letting God use your pain for His glory and to encourage so many others. Praying for you as his birthday approaches!

  5. It’s hard to know what to say after such an eloquent post. I, someone who never met your son, and yet so touched by his (and your) story. It’s hard to explain how total strangers could have effected me so much; God truly does move in mysterious ways.

    Happy Birthday, James. Thinking of you.

  6. Your words are beautiful, strong, and full of hope Abby – I really hope you know how YOUR story is helping complete strangers states away.

    I came across “Heaven is the Face” a few months back when trying to come up with ways to help a friend through a loss. Those times are really the hardest to come up with the “right” words and a person really doesn’t want to hurt a friend more… When I listened to the song it tore my heart a part and then I immediately thought of your family…your source of strength remains to me constant proof of what He can do for us all.

    Prayers always to your family!

  7. After seeing Matt and Ginny Moody on the Today Show, I checked out their blog (theatypicallife.com/blog) and began reading old entries. Matt has an entire post on SCC also, which was the last one I read today. For some reason, I felt compelled to go to your blog and see how you were settling in. No surprise when I found your letter to Steven. I saw him a few months ago at Northland; he is still raw and talked about his daughter the entire concert. My daughter was depressed by his demeanor; I told her that it was his way of dealing with his grief and that future concerts wouldn’t be so filled with Maria. Our special needs child, Emerson, has always been a blessing to her family. Her mom (my daughter) never had the need to grieve over what might have been (like I did). As her mother, I hope and pray that she will never feel that kind of sorrow that you and John or Matt and Ginny felt/feel, but I know grief and sorrow are part of life. Enjoy today with Valor, as I know you will.

  8. Happy Birthday, handsome James. We had many nites together when mom and dad would take a parents night out from Winnie. You are missed but more you are loved!!!

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  10. Dear beloved

    How interesting that I should come across your website and that you & other beloved brethren are dwelling in togetherness. I bless the name of the Lord for what you are doing in the body of Christ. It is wonderful to see men and women of God stand firm in faith and declare the message of Jesus Christ.

    My name is Isaac married to Emily. We are working in the body of christ by house Churches network relationship in Kenya East Africa. I was greatly touched and ministered to when I came a cross your Ministry page. God bless you greatly for obeying his Voice to minister this kind of healing to the Body of Christ.

    I want to encourage you both to continue to re-discover your true identities and walk this earth reflecting the Love of Christ. Life is but a journey…. that leads us back into the Father heart of God. Don’t let religious concepts stand in the way of TRUTH…. for the doctrine of men only lead to certain death but relationship with the Father leads to a NEW & LIVING way. Jesus said ” my words are SPIRIT & LIFE ” Let the Spirit guide and teach you in all HIS ways. The world is looking for something….. we have what they are looking for. I’m not talking about getting them “saved” no, no, no, but rather they have an encounter with the ONE who Loves them from before the foundations of this known world. That of course is the Christ in us ! ( not just us but to every person on this earth who is born of a woman ) There are no laws, rules, or regulations to follow for it is written on our hearts. Jesus came to set us free from the law of sin & death. Beloved you are FREE indeed.

    Would you please pray with us about the possibility of Coming to Africa some day if the Lord allows and may be do some ministry in this area? We have several house Churches network in Kenya pray that one day the lord may send you to come and strengthen our network with what God has put in you for the glory of the body of Christ. Please pray and see if the Lord leads. My heart has been to unite the friends and families for the love of Christ, as the bible says in Luke 10. I believe the dream of Jesus as in John 17 was to see the strong relationship united and show the world that we are one..

    May God bless you as we continue praying for you and looking forward to hearing from you.

    God bless you and keep you.

    Yours in Christ.

    Isaac & Emily Mukweyi

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