Excerpt:
Steven Curtis Chapman: This is where the real rewards and awards lie. If we can finish this journey together, if we can raise our children together. We stood at the crib of our first granddaughter, and I’ll get emotional again talking about it, because this was after our journey of losing Maria, and the darkest things that would destroy a marriage and felt like all hell was coming against us, and we stood together with arms around each other at the crib of our first granddaughter and said, “You know we did this. We did this together by the grace of God.”
End of Excerpt
John Fuller: Well, that’s Steven Curtis Chapman, describing the remarkable faith journey that he’s had as a Christian singer and songwriter for more than 30 years. And he’s our guest today, along with his wife, Mary Beth, and this is “Focus on the Family,” with Focus president and author Jim Daly. Thanks for joining us today. I’m John Fuller.
Jim Daly: John, let’s start with a quiz. What’s the first Steven Curtis Chapman song you remember listening to? Or your favorite?
John: The first? I think it’s “His Eyes,” which was maybe on one of the first one or two.
Steven: Yeah.
Jim: You can’t ask yet. We haven’t introduced him! (Laughter)
Steven: No, we didn’t say that!
John: So, I think “His Eyes.” It was kind of a nice, light ballad–
Jim: Okay.
John: –and some real nice singer/songwriter combinations.
Jim: “Not Home Yet.” That’s one of my favorites. You remember that one?
John: I do.
Jim: It’s off the Greatest Hits album, I think.
Steven: Yeah.
Jim: Oh, it’s so true. And you’ve written this book. Let me make sure everybody hears the title. Between Heaven and the Real World. What were you driving at to name your autobiography that title?
Steven: Well, you know, having not really done this before, one of the first–as far as writing a book about my life—you know, that was probably one of the biggest challenges was, what’s the title gonna be? How do I capture this unbelievable journey I feel like that God’s had me and my bride Mary Beth on?
She, with me for more than half of it now, but goin’ all the way back to the beginning of my journey, and what would capture that? And there’s a song I wrote several years ago in an album titled “Heaven In the Real World,” and I love that title because I feel like it captures so much of what I’ve tried to do with my music all these years, is bring heaven and the reality of God’s grace and God’s love and our relationship with Him into our very real world, you know, into the places that we live, and that’s the way I write my songs. I talk about the real stuff and just the journey, the day to day. And as I was thinking about what this journey has been like for me, both with my music and just so much of the journey that I’ve been on, I really feel like it’s been living with one foot in both worlds–
Jim: Sure.
Steven: –of really being in the very real world and the, you know, the mess of that and the brokenness of that. I tell a lot about that in my life and my desire to try to fix everything that’s broken and the struggle that that’s been.
Jim: Let me ask you about that.
Steven: Yeah.
Jim: And there’s so much. This is a great read, by the way.
Steven: Oh, thank you.
Jim: And it touches on so many areas. It’s not perfect. You’re not a perfect guy. I’m really disappointed by that.
Steven: I know. (Laughing)
Jim: Mary Beth, I thought you were the perfect wife. You guys are pretty close, though. (Laughing) No, I love it. I love that openness in the book, and I want to touch on some of that, especially for 20-, 30-somethings that I think of. When I’m talking to a group of younger folks, which I just did last week, one of the biggest things that I hear back from them, they’re raised in Christian homes, and yet, their mom and dad divorced. And it scares them about the lifelong commitment of marriage, the fact that they didn’t see their Christian parents live it.
So, they become fearful. Can I really do it? If my mom and dad couldn’t do it, how am I gonna do it? That happened to you. Describe the emotion of that, where your parents are today, and what that meant to you when they told you.
Steven: Yeah, well, you know, very quickly to try kinda go back to the beginning, the reason when my parents’ marriage didn’t last, one of the reasons that was so devastating is because in telling my story–and I think I even came to understand it more; I’ve kind of known it for a long time—but I was born really to kind of fix their marriage.
Jim: Well, that’s new.
Steven: They were at a point that it wasn’t working. My mom was 16 when they got married; my dad was 19; my brother came along very early. They were not doing well at all, and kind of a crazy idea that obviously I think was a God idea for them was, well, let’s try one last-ditch effort. Let’s have another kid. Let’s have another child–
Jim: To see if she or he could fix [it]. Wow.
Steven: –to see if he or she can kind of bring this together. Because my brother came into the picture not under planned circumstances, and it kind of threw them into a tailspin. So, I came in, you know, riding on the white horse, so to speak, to save the day for my parents’ marriage, and so it really did help.
And that, as I explained in the book, around, you know, the age when I was about 7 or 8, my parents really committed their lives to Christ, and at that point, as a family, we really, our faith and music kind of woven all together was really what brought us together. And for many, many years I grew up in just an amazing home and family that was very broken. My dad didn’t have a father. He was an alcoholic. So, to watch them just commit every step of the journey to the Lord. We ended up on our knees together many times after, you know, arguments and fusses and just saying, “God, help us. You know, help us figure this out.” So, that was an incredible gift to me.
Jim: How old were you when they decided they couldn’t make it work any longer?
Steven: Well, Mary Beth and I were married.
Jim: Oh, you were already married.
Mary Beth Chapman: Emily was 4.
Steven: Yeah, we had our first child, and so, you know, we started our journey as a result of watching my parents really, you know, walk this journey out, and [what] became kind of their mantra almost was, “Divorce is not even a word in our vocabulary. It’s not an option.” I watched them counsel many other couples.
So, when Mary Beth and I got married, and even when we began to kind of identify some of our own challenges and struggles, we just kind of took up that mantle. It’s like, hey, divorce is not even an option, just like my parents had done it, like her parents, we’re just gonna finish the journey no matter what. And so, when my parents, about five years into our marriage, when my parents’ marriage didn’t survive, that was a really devastating thing, because we were already kind of beginning to build our foundation on a lot of their example and their model.
Mary Beth: I think I thought, Shoot. (Laughter) This is not good!
Jim: Right, that’s a fair thought.
Mary Beth: You know, you just go, you know, and I think quickly after that you realize the enemy is so alive and well, because these are two, we’re talking about two of the most beautiful people that I’ve ever met. I mean, you are mad at them because you’re like, “Don’t you see what’s happening here?” But then you really quickly divert the anger to the one that’s really due the anger, because the enemy just blinded them. And yeah, those first thoughts that you have, I was, I think I got scared pretty quickly. My mom and dad are married. They are still married. They just celebrated 62 years.
Jim: Well, I love what Steven just said is that it honed in him the idea that it’s not about the words; it’s about the actions and the deeds. And that’s true of our entire walk here on this earth, isn’t it?
Mary Beth: Right.
Jim: I mean it’s easy to speak words; it’s much more difficult to live truth and to do truth.
Mary Beth: Right.
Jim: And you know there are many people listening, I’m convinced, here at Focus on the Family that have gone through divorce, and we know that, that happens. It’s not the Lord’s best for us, but you can pick up those pieces and hopefully continue to serve Him in other ways. And if you have a chance to mend that relationship, do it, and contact us here at Focus and we’ll help you every way we can. And that’s important.
Steven, in the book it caught my attention that you really, at 7-, 8-years-old you weren’t saying, “I need to be a musician.” It kind of came to you a little later.
Steven: Yeah.
Jim: What was the circumstance that you felt like, okay, maybe this could be a profession?
Steven: Yeah.
Jim: I mean most people fall into it, I guess.
Steven: Well, well, yeah.
Mary Beth: Chemistry class! (Laughter)
Steven: Yeah, yeah. (Laughter)
Jim: Chemistry class, that makes no sense, but tell us about it.
Steven: God used chemistry in an amazing way in my life. Well, I, yeah, I mean again, you know, being the guy who was gonna do it the right way, who was, you know, trying to be compliant and my dad, who is an amazing musician, said to me—I came home with straight A‘s on my report card several times—and Dad said, “Don’t do music. God gave you a brain; you know, go get a real job.” ‘Cause he had done music his whole life; he’d seen a lot of, you know, friends of his that had kind of struggled along, trying to be, you know, professional musicians and make a living doin’ that.
And so, he said, “You’re very talented, but you know, you can play music, you know, later in life and do it as a hobby and maybe try it later, but go to college, get a real job.” And so, I was like, “That sounds like a good plan. I’ll go get a real job. Let’s see, [I’ll] look at the list of real jobs–doctor. That’s a pretty real job. That ought to work.”
Jim: That’s a good one.
Steven: That’s about how much thought went into it to be honest with you. It was kind of like, “Let’s go pre-med.”
Mary Beth: I wish I knew him then.
Steven: Pre-med.
John: Such an altruistic reason to be a doctor.
Steven: Yeah, yeah, pre-med should work.
Jim: Anything is easy.
Steven: Yeah, yeah. You just go, ’cause I did well at my high school in my chemistry and my calculus, you know, all the higher kind of math and science classes, I did okay, so I thought, yeah, I can handle this. And so, I went to college, and again, God kind of orchestrating the plan, of course, I loved music and I played music. I was, you know, very involved.
My brother and I played a lot of music together, and I talk a lot about how my brother and my dad were actually the singers. I was the guitar player, the background guy, the accompanist, and the background singer. I was not the front man. And I got hired with my brother, Herbie, to work my summer before I started college at a place called Opryland USA.
Jim: Oh yeah.
Steven: It was an amusement park in Nashville. And we got hired to sing in a country music show there together. And so, that was really my first kind of moment in my journey to go, “Wait a minute. People think I can sing a little bit? Okay, maybe I’ll sing more.”
Jim: How did you get that break? I mean it doesn’t happen to just anybody.
Steven: Well, I know. We went and auditioned.
Mary Beth: They went to an audition.
Steven: We went and auditioned, and I actually went to audition with my brother. He was gonna audition as a singer. I wasn’t even signed up to audition as a singer.
Jim: How old were the two of you?
Steven: I was 18. Herbie was probably 20. And so, I went to actually play for him in the vocal audition, and I went to the musicians’ audition to try to get a job as a guitar player, because that was kind of my thing, and as we auditioned, as he sang, we got done and they said, “Herb, you know, that was very good. Steve, do you sing? Why don’t you sing a song for us?” I think they liked the idea that two brothers kind of looked alike. And so, I sang a song, and my knees were knockin’, my voice was shaky. I thought, there’s no way they are gonna hire me.
And somehow we both got hired, and so, we got the job at Opryland, and it was that summer, going into my freshman year as a pre-med student, that a guy heard me sing, heard my brother and me, and heard that I wrote gospel music as kind of a hobby, that, that was something I did. And he said, he came up after one of our shows and said, “Play me some of your songs. I hear you write gospel music. I know some people who, you know, are involved in the music, in the Christian music industry.”
Steven: Turns out the guy he knew very well, [a] real good friend of his, was a fellow you might know named Bill Gaither. And long story short, he took my music, some of my songs, to Bill Gaither [and] said, “You ought to listen to this. This guy’s got something here.” And it was Bill who eventually gave me my first publishing deal and gave me the opportunity to begin to kind of take the first steps towards music.
That was all happening in my freshman year as a pre-med student at Georgetown College in Northern Kentucky, where I was struggling very much with college chemistry and calculus (Laughter) and all these classes.
Jim: All the things that were gonna make you a doctor.
Steven: So it was this kind of planets coming into alignment. Okay, I’m kind of failing here or struggling very much in college chemistry, and Bill Gaither’s calling me, saying, “Hey, I like your songs.” Maybe God’s saying somethin’ here. You know, maybe there’s an opportunity for me here to redirect my steps. And that’s really how things began.
Mary Beth: And of course the chemistry teacher called him in and said, “Please go do music.”
Steven: Yeah.(Laughter)
Mary Beth: That was the long and short of that class.
Steven: Yeah, exactly.
Mary Beth: “Please go do music.”
John: That’s great. Well, our guests today on “Focus on the Family” are Steven Curtis Chapman and his wife, Mary Beth, and we’re enjoying a conversation about Steven’s book, Between Heaven and the Real World: My Story. It’s his autobiography, and there is so much in here. I’ll encourage you to get the book at http://focusonthefamily.com/radio. Or call us. Our number is 800-232-6459.
And I’d love to ask you a question. One of the things I do, Jim, as I’m traveling and I’m meeting folks is I like to ask, “So how did you meet?” And so, Mary Beth, he’s on this rocket ship that is music. How did you meet Steven and what was that like?
Mary Beth: Well, so to pick up where his story just left off, he was at Georgetown, and because he met Danny Daniels and introduced him to Bill Gaither, there was a little college in Anderson, Indiana, it’s Anderson University now, but at the time Anderson College. And so, he transferred. He got booted out of the pre-med chemistry class. (Laughter)
Steven: It wasn’t really a boot!
John: He chose not to complete [it].
Jim: Was it a tennis shoe?
Steven: Gentle slipper! (Laughter)
Mary Beth: Just a gentle [slipper].
Jim: A slipper! A slipper kick! (Laughter)
Mary Beth: And so, he transferred to Anderson, and I was an incoming freshman, and I actually met Herbie first, his older brother. I met him in kind of the common area where all the mail boxes and all that are. And I met Herbie, and we had to be there early for freshman orientation. You know you have to go, like freshmen have to go like a week early, and I remember this band playing, and Steven and his brother in this band. They were in like a promo band for the university. They’d travel around and tell people about Anderson.
And it never really registered. They introduced themselves, but it never really registered that that Steve Chapman was the Steve Chapman that was also in my mail box. Because my name, Mary Beth Chapman, was still Mary Beth Chapman before I married Steven Chapman. It was my maiden [name].
Jim: You didn’t have to change your driver’s license?
Mary Beth: My name, yeah, my maiden name or my monograms or anything. (Laughter)
Jim: That was convenient, yeah.
Mary Beth: He actually took my name. That’s what I say. (Laughter) So, we actually shared a mail box at Anderson, and then he asked me to share a mail box forever.
Jim: Okay, did you guys leave notes for each other? I just have to ask.
Mary Beth: I have a trunk, a cedar chest, that to my knowledge I’ve never thrown a letter away that he’s written, and I’ve gotten letters on paper plates, napkins, letters, cards. I will say to this day when this man leaves town, and if he leaves early in the morning or it’s late at night and goes to catch the bus, when the girls and I get up in the morning, there is a note for each one of us every time he leaves town.
Jim: Oh, man, that right there’s a great lesson. Try to out-note each other in marriage.
Mary Beth: Yeah, well, I’m way out-noted.
Jim: I’m not good at that.
Mary Beth: I will never catch up. (Laughter) I’m telling you right now, I will never catch up.
Jim: Well, that is good. You described your first date, though, in the book. What was that like
Mary Beth: Cheddar biscuits. (Laughing)
Steven: Oh yeah.
Jim: Cheddar biscuits?
Steven: Red Lobster, well, here’s the thing.
Mary Beth: It’s a seafood moment.
Steven: And you can jump in and correct me at any point, sweetheart, ’cause you will remember.
Jim: This is why marriages works, everybody, right? Just witness this.
Mary Beth: It’s gonna be, “He said, she said.”
Steven: Now Mary Beth wrote her version of the story, and part of the reason why I felt like I had to write the book is she told her version in an amazing book called Choosing to See, that Mary Beth wrote and we actually have shared and talked about that once when we were together.
And so, I had a spy kind of watching out, and the dorm room phone rang on a Sunday afternoon and said, “Hey, Mary Beth Chapman, 12 o’clock, comin’ across campus. She’s gonna be in front of your dorm in about three minutes.” So, you know, I ran out and I met her, and I tell the story of how I ran out in my Sunday [clothes]. I still was in my Sunday go-to-meetin’ clothes, and my polyester socks, and the leaves were sticking to my socks. It was not a pretty sight. (Laughter)
But somehow, even though all the leaves on my socks and everything else, I looked goofy, but she said, “Yes.” I asked her if she would go on a date with me. And so, I was gonna take her to the nicest restaurant Anderson had to offer, which was Red Lobster for the seafood lover in you. I thought, hey, this is where I’m taking her.
But I had a concert. I had to go play music with my college band that night, and I told her, “You know, I’ve gotta go do this concert. We’re playing at a World War II veterans’ dinner,” and so, we’re supposed to play at like 6 o’clock at night. It was something the college had lined up for us. They needed some entertainment, so they got the college to send us over. So, that was like a 20-minute thing. I should be there, you know, 7 o’clock.
Well, the guys at the dinner started telling their war stories, their fox-hole stories, and it started going on and on. Bob said, “Oh that reminds me.” Or “Remember when …” And so, the time just got away, and there were no cell phones. There was no opportunity. We were sitting in this little ballroom at this hotel, and I can’t go call her, and I’m thinking, “This is over.” I mean it’s like an hour and a half now.
Mary Beth: Two hours late.
Steven: Well, by the time I got to pick her up it was about two hours (Laughter) from when I told her I’d pick her up. So, I thought [there] is no way this was gonna work. And I walked in and I tell it in the book, so I’m gonna go ahead and confess it. I know we’re “Focus on the Family” here, so, do not as I do; do as I say, because I told my boys, you know, just, you know, many dates in before, you know, you think about even, you know, a peck on the cheek or anything, but I thought, you know what? We had had lots of meals together in the cafeteria, so while this was technically our first date, this is backstroking.
Mary Beth: He’s trying to make this sound a lot better than it really is.
Steven: You hear the water splashing and me backstroking here. But it was not technically I didn’t feel like our first date, but it was our first date for going out, out off of campus, and I walked in. I thought, I got one shot here. And I’m two hours late. I don’t know if there’s any chance, but I’m really fascinated with this girl, so I’m gonna try the power of persuasion. And I walked in. I said, “I’m so sorry. This happened, that happened, but thank you for still being here.” And I kissed her. I did kiss her, first date. Sorry, guys. Sorry, moms. Sorry, dads. Laughter)
Jim: Say that one again! Sorry dad, one more time!
Steven: But 32 years later here we sit, so I don’t know. I must just be that good of a kisser.
Mary Beth: We had spent a lot of time together.
Steven: I don’t know what it was, but somehow.
Jim: Was that a good thing?
Mary Beth: It was a good thing. (Laughter) I’m here.
Jim: I went for the handshake. That’s how bad I was! (Laughter)
Steven: Oh gosh. Yes! See, well, the holding hands.
Jim: I shook Jean’s hand for like a month.
John: The holy handshake.
Jim: I was so afraid to kiss her. (Laughter) I wanted to make sure she knew my intentions were right.
Steven: Yes, yes. You’re a better man.
Jim: Maybe we would have married sooner if I’d kissed her.
Steven: See, that’s why you’re the, you know, the king of Focus on the Family.
Jim: Yeah, right.
Steven: I’m just a songwriter out here.
Jim: You know these are fun background stories to what I really want to dig into, and we’re gonna run out of time here, but your marriage had some struggles as well. Maybe just let us see into that picture, and we’re gonna come back next time and we’ll talk more about those struggles, because this is where many of us live. It’s not always in writing each other great notes and “I love you’s.” There’s also pain.
Mary Beth: Oh yeah.
Jim: And you guys did experience that. Give us a little insight into what happened and what year in the marriage. And what were kind of the undercurrents of your struggles?
Steven: Well, I say that, you know, we entered into our marriage thinking, you know, we got the same last name, I mean we just felt like this was gonna be almost unfair how easy this is gonna be. (Laughter)
John: Piece of cake.
Steven: You know, we’re so much alike.
Mary Beth: Piece of cake.
Steven: We can’t, you know, we just can’t get enough of [each other. We [were] just talking all the time. We want to know everything there is to know about each other, and everything we know about each other is just fascinating and amazing and incredible and this is just gonna be so easy. And that lasted a couple of hours—
Mary Beth: Hours.
Steven: –into our marriage I think is about how long. (Laughing)
Jim: A couple of hours?
Steven: It was our drive home from Cincinnati, Ohio, where we spent our one honeymoon night.
Mary Beth: One night, our one honeymoon night.
Steven: Our honeymoon was one night.
Jim: In Cincinnati.
Steven: In Cincinnati, Ohio, ’cause that was on the way home from Springfield, Ohio—
Mary Beth: From Springfield, Ohio.
Steven: –to Nashville where I had to be.
Jim: A practical honeymoon.
Mary Beth: I had to be at work Monday.
Steven: Yeah.
Mary Beth: He had to go back to school.
Steven: Yeah, I had to go back to school, and this was, we got married on a Saturday, so we had Sunday.
John: So, that car drive was your first fight?
Steven: And we went to the Cincinnati Zoo.
Mary Beth: No…no…
Steven: I don’t say it was even a fight.
Mary Beth: No, ’cause I threw my backpack at you.
Steven: Yeah, we had a fight. I knew I (Laughter) had a feisty one here right from the beginning.
Mary Beth: He was marrying feisty, yeah.
Jim: I can’t see that.
Steven: You can’t see that at all?
Mary Beth: No, I’m so calm. I try not to be.
Jim: Oh, I love it.
Steven: But I think what was pretty terrifying in that drive home, we went to the Cincinnati Zoo [and] that was our honeymoon basically.
Mary Beth: That was our honeymoon, a day at the zoo and it was raining. All the animals were inside.
Steven: It was raining.
Jim: Oh, my goodness.
Steven: And we had 50 bucks in our pocket, true.
Mary Beth: And our Pinto that we get blown up.
Steven: And our green Ford Pinto.
Mary Beth: We got hit in the back.
Jim: Allegedly blown up. (Laughter)
Steven: Yes, that was our car.
Mary Beth: Allegedly blown up, yeah, allegedly.
Steven: And we’re driving home and I look over and she’s crying. And I’m thinking, this is not exactly how I thought we were gonna start our journey.
And I think, you know, we quickly began to realize that we were very different, that you know, I came from a family where you just, you know, yelled and screamed and talked about it and you got it out in the open. And there was, you know, this, it wasn’t pretty, but you, you know, you talked about what was going on. She came from a home where you kind of swept a lot of things under the rug and you didn’t talk about what you were feeling, and so, when things were hard, you just kind of shut down.
And so, here I am sayin’, you know, pretty quickly, you know, “The Bible says don’t let the sun go down on your anger and we’re angry and the sun’s goin’ down. We gotta fix this, ’cause I’m the fixer. We’ve gotta fix this right now.
Mary Beth: And I would say, “Good night” (Laughing) and go to sleep.
Jim: And roll over.
Steven: And [she would] roll over and go to sleep.
Jim: Yeah.
Mary Beth: You didn’t like that very well.
Steven: I did not like that, because I had to fix it, you know, and fix it now.
Jim: So, you laid there, three, four hours, stewing about it, but not talking about it.
Steven: Well, yeah, right.
Jim: How do I know these things? Oh, because I’m married too! (Laughter)
Steven: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Jim: You know, we’ve got to end it here, but let’s come back next time, because I think so many people live in this spot. Christians, non-Christians; we have a number of non-Christians who listen. We’re here for you, because we believe that marriage is God’s design.
Mary Beth: Right.
Jim: His purpose for us as couples [is] to learn to become more like Him, which is selfless. And that’s what kind of grates against our own flesh and our own desires, is because it’s Godlike to be selfless. And you want to learn selflessness? Get married.
Mary Beth: Yeah, really.
Jim: Yeah, it’ll push you there or it’ll push you out.
Steven and Mary Beth: Yeah.
Jim: And that’s one of the things. This has been so good. Your book, Between Heaven and the Real World, that’s kinda how we’re feeling we live this life, isn’t it?
Steven: Yeah.
Jim: Man, let’s do it. Let’s come back next time. Will you stick with us?
Steven: We’d love to.
Mary Beth: We’d love to. Thanks.
John: Well, we hope you’ve been encouraged by what Steven and Mary Beth have been sharing today. And if you can identify with some of those struggles that they’ve experienced and you want to get some help for your marriage, please contact us. Focus on the Family wants to help your family in any way that we can and we have caring Christian counselors and a number of websites, a lot of different resources we can point you to like Steven’s book. You can learn more about Between Heaven and the Real World and a CD or a download of our conversation. We’re gonna include what we share next time, as well and those resources are at http://focusonthefamily.com/radio. Or call 1-800, the letter A and the word FAMILY: 800-232-6459.
Let me invite you to join our support team. We rely on financial gifts to continue these programs and offer resources. And I’ll encourage you to make a generous donation to Focus on the Family today. And when you do, we’ll send Steven’s book as our way of saying thank you for supporting families around the world. Donate and request your copy of Between Heaven and the Real World at www.focusonthefamily.com/radio.
Well coming up next time, Steven Curtis Chapman talks more about his commitment to his marriage.
Teaser:
Steven: It’s the reason I wrote this song, “I Will Be Here.” I want to be able to say at the end of this journey, we’re here together. That’s what’s most important. That’s what I want to make a priority.”