Choosing to See

Congratulations to Chris Nichols for winning this week's book giveaway!  While this contest is now closed, please come back to SixSeeds for more giveaways for good, family, fun!

Editor’s Note: In May 2008, Steven and Mary Beth Chapman’s youngest adopted daughter Maria ran up the driveway to meet her older brother as he was coming home in his SUV.  He didn’t see her and fatally struck her with the vehicle.


Confession: I wrote this article about Mary Beth Chapman's best-selling book "Choosing to See: A Journey of Struggle and Hope" without having read it.  As an author, I can always tell when reporters have read the books when they interview me – and it always seems rude when they haven’t bothered to pick up a copy.  But this time, with this book, I made an exception.  We adopted a toddler from Africa a few month ago, and the very thought of reading the Chapmans’ story seemed unbearable.  So, I got quotes, I looked up summaries, and didn't do a "review."  Instead I decided to do a book giveaway -- whatever it took to avoid their tragic story.

Then, my conscience got the better of me.

Through the magic of iPad and the Amazon Kindle bookstore, I ended up last night curled up in a chair with an electric blanket and a box of Kleenex…  amazed by this gut-punch of a book.  And when it was over, I realized I was just the person who needed it.

It’s premise is, basically, what do you do when life doesn’t go as planned?

Mary Beth Chapman – as many of you know -- is the wife of Grammy and Dove Award winning recording artist, Steven Curtis Chapman. Their daughter Emily suggested they adopt a baby from overseas, but Mary Beth was the lone dissenter.  After two and a half years of Emily’s encouragement, however, she got on board with the cause of adoption.

And she did it, like so many other things in her life, with zeal.

The Chapmans adopted Shaohannah in 2000, Stevey Joy in 2002, and Maria Sue in 2004.  

But they didn’t stop there. Steven and Mary Beth began a non-profit organization, Show Hope (originally named Shaohannah’s Hope after their first adopted daughter) which cares for the world’s forgotten and abandoned children by providing financial assistance to families wishing to adopt, as well as helping bring awareness and funnel resources to the ongoing needs of orphans both domestically and internationally.

But then, the unimaginable happened.  Maria, their youngest, was struck by the SUV in their driveway.

“I’ve told my kids for years that God doesn’t make mistakes,” she writes.  “Would I believe it now, when my whole world as I knew it came to an end?”

The book, however, is not simply about the accident.  She writes about her courtship and 25 year marriage to Steven Curtis whom she met in college after being assigned the same mailbox because they had the same last name.  (Oddly, Mary Beth’s maiden name was Chapman.)

But the heart of the book is her struggle for emotional balance in a world that so frequently disappoints.  She writes of growing up in a family that swept problems under the rug, even if talking about the issues would help the kids and family grow closer together and understand more about our existence on this planet.  

That’s when it hit me.  I so desperately wanted tragedies like the death of children to simply not happen, I wouldn’t even open the book – or my eyes – to see it. Rather, to SEE it.

In other words, Mary Beth’s story touches on many of our own struggles – she writes about events I might not tell my best friend.  For example, she tells of a rafting experience that ended up with her in a boatful of strangers in a rather compromising position.  Or, when she and Steven were dating, they played a game of “chicken” – she on his shoulders trying to push another couple down – that ended unfortunately due to her weak bladder.  And Steven Curtis – in a forward – literally uses the words “hubba hubba” to describe her.  The cumulative effect of the string of honest (and sometimes silly) reflections juxtaposed with tragedy was, counter-intuitively, joy and hope.  

The book is an encouragement – and admonition – to see the world for what it is.  Though she writes this book from a Christian perspective, SixSeeds readers of any faith (or no faith at all) will appreciate the graceful struggle of a mom facing the unthinkable.

I highly recommend this book.

Now that I’ve actually read it.

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