Tony Cummings reports on Nashville-based, award-winning songsmith STEVEN CURTIS CHAPMAN

Steven Curtis Chapman

The release in October of 'The Glorious Unfolding' by Steven Curtis Chapman brings back into the spotlight the 50 year old singer/songwriter, who has done as much to popularise CCM as any artist with a record number of Dove Awards. But of course the new album is much, much more than a return to the CD racks. It is an intensely personal musical statement which attempts to deal with the harrowing process of reframing one's life story after it takes some tragic turns. Just about all of Steven's huge fanbase know what overtook the Nashville-based singer/songwriter and his family on a particular day in May 2008. That was the day one of Chapman's sons accidentally hit his five year old sister Maria with a car in the driveway, fatally injuring her. Suddenly, the house that held the family's happiest memories also held its most horrible, as Chapman said, "Those memories that you skip over because you have to in order to get on with life. You skip over them enough that your muscles don't realise they're skipping over them anymore. Until that day you trip."

After his daughter's death, Steven and his family couldn't bear to look at where she had died but couldn't bear the thought of leaving the place she had lived. Eventually, Chapman's wife, Mary Beth, decided she wanted to tear down the house. "She wanted to destroy it and build something new in its place," Chapman explained to USA Today. He knew that 80 to 90 per cent of marriages don't survive the death of a child. On the other hand, he knew that such an extravagant, expensive gesture might be seen as wasteful."

Chapman continued, "The best thing to do to love my family and my wife was to do just that." So in August 2011 they demolished it. "There was a hole in the ground where the basement was. We reconfigured where the driveway comes up to the house, where the house sits, all of that." As they watched the place they had lived come down, Chapman saw his wife crying. "She said, 'I'm crying because this is what happened on May 21, but I'm just getting to see it in a tangible, physical way.' Our house was destroyed, and it was violent, and it was devastating, and it was left rubble. But somehow, being able to see it in a real physical, tangible way, it helped us touch bottom and realise that there was a bottom. It wasn't a black hole where we just keep falling, falling and falling."

Gradually since that darkest of days in 2008 Steven began writing new songs. It's been a long and challenging process. He said, "I really believe that God is going to tell a story, and there are some unimaginable chapters that come into our lives - cancer, thinking you're going to lose a child, maybe even losing a child. Yet, if I believe anything I've ever sung and written songs about, it's that it's going somewhere. Maybe it's going to make a lot less sense in my Southern Baptist upbringing of God-loves-you-and-has-a-wonderful-plan-for-your-life: It's a lot bigger and messier than that. It might get way uglier than you thought, but there's a story that's unfolding in the midst of all this, and, ultimately, God's going to unfold an amazing, beautiful epic."

Steven and Mary Beth

Steven told Today's Christian Music magazine around the time of 'The Glorious Unfolding' release in October, "These last few years have been some of the hardest chapters of my life. . .unthinkable chapters. At points it's easy to think that this is it. This is the story. It's hard and painful and we're going to live with some of the trauma of losing Maria. At times it feels like the end is closing in. But for me, the importance of this record and these songs is to share that this is one chapter in a story. God knows the plans he has for us and they're not summed up in one small sliver in this one chapter. Can we dare to believe that God is telling an epic story with our lives? If we reduce it to one chapter it's as foolish as picking up a book, reading one chapter and nothing else. He really is finishing the work he started. It was good and it's going to be good again."

'The Glorious Unfolding' has received extremely enthusiastic reviews. Wrote Indie Vision Music, "'The Glorious Unfolding' is a grand masterpiece and in time will hopefully become one of the SCC greats alongside other standout albums in his career, from 'The Great Adventure' to 'Speechless', 'This Moment', 'Signs Of Life' and 'Declaration'." Jesus Freak Hideout was just as enthusiastic. "The highlights on this album are numerous. Chapman once again opens the album with a wonderful song in the title track with its fade-in opening, soft synths and rousing chorus. 'Love Take Me Over', the lead single with its clap-tap beat, the percussion-driven 'Take Another Step' with its persistent chorus to match its theme of persistence, the intimate piano ballad 'Together' (as much an anthem for couples as 'I Will Be Here') and the closing hymn-like 'At The Feet Of Jesus' are the biggest highlights, but there is no weak track anywhere on the album (though the latter half of the album slows down considerably and could use another upbeat song). In particular, 'Together' has a deeply personal meaning for the Chapmans as a song written for his wife in honour of their ongoing love in the face of Maria's death (since, as Chapman points out elsewhere, 90 per cent of marriages don't survive the loss of a child)."

The final words belong to the veteran songsmith. "Music has been a part of everything I have believed and will anchor myself to again. Music has always been that anchor for me to hold onto. To celebrate joy, to begin to laugh again. . . Through all the journey has allowed me to go through, music has been the gift God has given us. When words aren't enough, it has been that faithful friend."