Special to The Answer

Warning: Do not listen to this CD unless you want to experience God’s presence and healing. These songs cause intense cleansing and intimacy with God especially through weeping.

Stephen Curtis Chapman’s youngest daughter, Marie, was accidentally run over by his son, Will on May 21, 2008. Beauty Will Rise is Chapman’s latest release born out of his family’s memories of Marie as well as the pain they have experienced at her loss. These songs testify to God’s incredible faithfulness and His ability to bring comfort and sure hope in the midst of the most excruciating circumstances.

As I listen to this CD, I cannot help but think of all the parents who have lost children through sickness, murder, and accidents including those who have even taken the lives of their own children. I also cannot get away from the fact that God is able to make all things new no matter how horrible they are if we confess the truth about ourselves and repent. The title song states, “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 buried deep beneath / All our broken dreams we have this hope / Out of these ashes / Beauty will rise / And we will dance among the ruins.”

Those parents who grieved over taking the lives of their children will not only be reunited with them in heaven, but, I believe, God is willing to begin this process of restoration here on earth. In the song SEE, Chapman sings, “From the other side of all this pain / Is that you I hear? / Laughing loud and calling out to me? . . . And I’m counting down the days until you’re here with me.”

I believe that God is so generous and loving and restoring that these children whose lives have been taken by their parents are completely whole and healed right now in His presence and that they are waiting to embrace their parents. I believe God wants these parents to know that nothing is impossible for Him, even their own depravity. I believe God deeply desires to let these parents see into the heavenlies now and know what He has already accomplished—to know what Paul proclaimed in 1 Corinthians 15:54-56, “So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?’ The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

No matter where you are in this life, cling to God as you listen to these songs and let Him fulfill in you the promises He has made through Jesus Christ “to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives an release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes . . . (Isaiah 61:1-3).”