Cinderella
Steven Curtis Chapman is an amazing man. I mean it. I came away from his concert this weekend appreciating both his skill as an artist and his deep honesty and humility as a man.
I was moderately familiar with him going in, but what I know, I love- nobody writes a hit Christian pop-rock single quite like he does. While I was glad he played many of his songs that I love, like "Magnificent Obsession", "Live Out Loud", and "Dive", and appreciated some of the ones I hadn't heard before, like "The Great Adventure", his concert was my favorite of the weekend because of one song.
I only heard the song "Cinderella" once, while flipping through radio stations in a rental car driving through Virginia in April 2008. But as you could probably guess from the fact that I remembered that, it stuck with me. It's a beautiful song about a father trying to treasure the moments he gets to spend with his daughter as she grows up right before his eyes.
And I know you're all aware of my distaste for children, but dangit, this song is almost enough to make me wish for a daughter someday.
He wrote the song for his youngest two daughters, after a night when he was trying to put them to bed so he could get some work done. They, of course, were busy being little girls, running around playing dress-up, causing mischief and generally doing anything but going to bed. After he finally succeeded, he got back to work, only to stop and think about the special time he'd just missed. He'd seen his oldest daughter, then in college, grow out of playing dress-up and having bed time and other parts of her childhood, and realized that he wouldn't have these moments with his younger girls for much longer. So he wrote the song "Cinderella" for them that night, knowing that while they were young then, things would change all too quickly.
Unfortunately, the changes that came were not the kind he was expecting. Only about a month after I heard the song, his youngest daughter, five year-old Maria, was killed in a car accident. When I heard about this, I simply assumed that he just didn't play the song anymore.
But instead of shying away from the issue, he tackled it head-on. A few songs into the set, he stopped and talked a little bit about what he and his family had been dealing with over the last couple years. He talked about how he was still wrestling with things, and how he had spent a lot of time looking at some of his songs- songs about trusting God, about everything being His, and especially about her- and wondering if he could bring himself to play them with sincerity again. But he concluded that yes, even after this, he could still trust Him. He could still thank Him for the blessing that she had been on his life, and- most important of all- that he would see her again someday.
Then he played the song. And I just... cried. I don't do that. But I could not help myself. I doubt you could, either. Just look at the chorus:
"So I will dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms
'Cause I know something the prince never knew
Oh, I will dance with Cinderella
I don't want to miss even one song
'Cause all too soon the clock will strike midnight
And she'll be gone..."
Afterwards, he played some other songs about her and about his family dealing with the aftermath, but "Cinderella" was the one that stuck with me. It's never easy, being a public figure and going through a personal tragedy. But doing so in the Christian bubble, where you're expected to put on a happy face and just blandly repeat 'God is good, all the time'... All I can say is, I am impressed with the integrity, sincerity and directness with which he handles his situation during his show. Hats off to Steven Curtis Chapman, and may God bless you and your family as you continue to sort things out. And I hope you continue to cling to the hope you have in seeing Maria again.