Steven Curtis Chapman - Beauty Will Rise Review

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May 21, 2008 was to be a special day at the Chapman home in Franklin, TN. Steven Curtis and Mary Beth were about to celebrate both their daughter's engagement and the high school graduation of their eldest son. Then, something horrible happened.  As one of their sons pulled into the driveway he didn't see his little 5-year old sister Maria. His vehicle struck and killed her, leaving Christian music's most successful singer/songwriter to cope with unspeakable pain, the loss of one child and to father another through heart-numbing guilt.   I myself have a 5-year-old little girl and the thought of such a thing is something I cannot bear.

Beauty Will Rise is Mr Chapman's love letter to his lost little girl and a raw look at him working through his pain.  With sparse arraignments and acoustic guitar, he publicly wrestles with pain only a father who has lost a child can experience.

He said that, after he lost Maria, he honestly didn't know if he would ever write or sing songs again. But, he did, and the result is his own personal set of psalms exploring the depths of his emotions, feeling his pain, but never to the level of despair.

Lead track and first single Heaven is the Face takes us straight to the heart of the matter with lyrics like, "Heaven is a sweet, maple syrup kiss, And a thousand other little things I miss with her gone, Heaven is the place where she takes my hand, And leads me to You,And we both run into Your arms"

Title track Beauty Will Rise has a quick melody the belies the pain expressed yet the hope felt in the same lyric. He exposes his unrelenting pain/rage, "It was the day the world went wrong, I screamed til my voice was gone, And watched through the tears as everything, Came crashing down...Slowly panic turns to pain, As we awake to what remains, And sift through the ashes, That are left behind" But he sees hope through the tears, "I can almost feel the hand of God, Reaching for my face to wipe the tears away,
You say it's time to make everything new."

This album is full of that, like in See, he finds himself in a dark place, "Right now all I can taste are bitter tears.", but ends it with words of  Psalm 34:8, "O taste and see that the Lord is good."

In case you are wondering, these are not just Christian platitudes and a "grin on the outside through tough times" demeanor. Chapman is above all honest with his emotions,  longing to be with his little girl in heaven on Just Have To Wait, "Well I can't wait to see your smile again, The one when your eyes disappear along with all my troubles."  and questioning the God he so clearly believes in on Questions, 'Who are You God? Cause You are turning out to be so much different than I imagined.  And where are You God? Cause I am finding life to be so much harder than I had planned."  and "How could You be so good and strong, And make a world that can be so painful"

Yet the very next song reflects his conviction that Our God is In Control.  Then he comes to the conclusion that "When you think you've hit the bottom, And the bottom gives way. And you fall into a darkness, No words can explain, You don't know how you'll make it out alive, Jesus will meet you there."  on Jesus Will Meet You There.

And finally, he emerges from his valley with Spring is Coming, singing that

"We planted the seed while the tears of our grief sowed the ground
The sky lost its sun and the world lost it's green to lifeless brown
Now the chill in the wind has turned the earth hard as stone
And silent the seed lies beneath ice and snow
And my heart's heavy now, but I'm not letting go
Of this hope I have that tells me
Spring is coming, Spring is coming"

and for good measure he enlists the Children of the World International Children"s Choir on the final chorus.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Beauty Will Rise is a must listen for anyone who has ever lost someone.  I can't overstate the cathartic value of this record as Steven Curtis Chapman gives us something  different than anything he's ever given us before.  The faith and values he has openly shared for 20+ years in song have been put to the most severe unimaginable test possible.  And he allows us into his valley in the hope we can make sense of our own pain by experiencing his.  Deliberately using sparse acoustic arrangements so as not to distract from the lyric and the raw emotion he wears on his sleeve could easily have turned into something depressing and melancholy, but it did not.  Beauty Will Rise is intense, personal, raw and emotional, but it serves as a reminder that, even in our darkest hour we are never alone and that, after a period of healing there really is peace in the valley, for him, for me and for you.  GRADE: A+