Choosing to SEE: Fingerprints of God

Even during tough teenage years, Emily adored her little sisters from China. Shaoey joined the family during Emily’s final year of middle school, and Stevey Joy came home while Emily was in high school.

Emily spent countless hours in the dress-up closet playing princess with the little girls. She took care of them and saved my sanity when Steven was traveling and Caleb and Will had places to be, and I was just one parent running back and forth between five children.

Then, during Emily’s final year of high school, Steven became convinced we should adopt again.

Of course, none of us knew quite what to expect once Maria came into the picture . . . or all the things God was going to do through her little life.


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Mary Beth's blog

Information on 'Show Hope', the charity established by the Chapmans.

Choosing to SEE: Adopting Again

Shaoey’s first year with us had been filled with broken sleep and screams from night terrors. So the boys really wanted a low-maintenance, happier sister who would have no problems sleeping through the night, and they decided it would be good to pray fervently for a chilled-out Chinese baby.

(After a SARS-influenced very short notice flight to China to collect her newest daughter…)

I finally got up the nerve to call home. Caleb and Will got on the phone. “Mom, we’ve been praying so hard,” Caleb said. “Is Stevey Joy all calm and chilled out?”

“Well,” I said, “uh . . .”

Caleb could hear Stevey Joy screaming bloody murder in the background. “Is that her I hear?” he asked.

“Well, she’s so sick—” I started.

“Oh, no!” Caleb moaned. “But Mom, we prayed!”


Book details and sample chapters
UK paperback edition just published!
Price: £7.99
ISBN: 9780800719920
Available via all good bookshops, or on-line.

Mary Beth's blog

Information on 'Show Hope', the charity established by the Chapmans.

Choosing to SEE: Something Miraculous

As I got on the airplane and flew halfway around the world to retrieve the sixth member of our family I was still afraid. I had no idea that God was going to do a miracle in China.
* * *
I saw a Chinese woman carrying a bundled baby…

I couldn’t get to her fast enough. I opened my arms, flew toward the woman, and took the baby. Tears poured down my face. I couldn’t believe that this was my child. I stared down at her, crying over and over, “This is my baby!”

In that moment, time stopped. It was like God was speaking to me directly. “Mary Beth, you thickheaded woman, do you not understand now that this is the very way I see you? You are this orphan! I adopted you and you are Mine! I bought you for a price! Do you see how you love this baby? That’s just a faint reflection of how much I love you! You didn’t have a name, and I gave you a name. You did nothing to deserve my love, and I love you anyway. You had no hope, no future, and now you are the daughter of the King!”

I saw it. The second she was placed in my arms, I would have fought to the death to protect her. I loved her with everything inside of me.

“Do you get it now?” God was saying to me. Under the blanket, this baby was wrapped in rags. She was poor. She didn’t smell good. She was hungry. There was nothing about her that had “earned” my love. But I loved her powerfully, deeply, absolutely. Period.

I got it.

* * *

140 Million Orphans

There are about 140 million orphans in the world today. As we became aware of their needs, we read our Bibles with fresh eyes. We saw all the times that the Bible talks about both orphans and adoptions. In Steven’s music and in the platforms God gave us, we started talking more about them as well.

If there was ever an issue that followers of Jesus should be all about, it would be caring for orphans in their distress.

Book details and sample chapters
UK paperback edition just published!
Price: £7.99
ISBN: 9780800719920
Available via all good bookshops, or on-line.

Mary Beth's blog

Information on 'Show Hope', the charity established by the Chapmans.

Choosing to SEE: Emily's Letter

Our daughter Emily has always been a very compassionate person.

“Before you make your final decision about adoption
please remember that there are children being born as
you read this letter that have no hope for the future. All
they will know is a crib or one small room with work
that comes along with it. Not everyone in this world
can help these children but not to brag, we are financially
equipped & I know deep down in your heart you
would love a baby but you say you’re scared of the challenge.
Look you have 4 people under the same roof as
you that would be a help to you. I know we’re gone
for 7 hrs. in the day but we are home for 6 hrs. Before
we have to go to bed. Please pray about adopting.”
Note written by Emily Chapman, age eleven, 1997


For his part, Steven didn’t need much convincing. He loved the idea of us adopting. He thought it was a beautiful theological picture of how God adopts us as His children. He also thought that since we had been so blessed, it was a way to share our blessings. And since
we were in the public eye, it might also inspire other families to open their homes to adopt orphans.

Meanwhile, Miss Persistent had bought a book on international adoption with her birthday money, and while I drove our minivan to soccer practice and errands, Emily would sit in the back and read out loud to me.

“Mom!” she’d say. “Did you know it only costs this or that to adopt a child from here or there?” She was relentless.

So we prayed regularly—but guaranteed, not as regularly as Emily Chapman—for God’s leading about the adoption decision.

I was beginning to believe that God was nudging us down the road toward adoption, building my faith as He did so.

But I was also full of fear. “What if I can’t do this?” I wondered.

Book details and sample chapters
UK paperback edition just published!
Price: £7.99
ISBN: 9780800719920
Available via all good bookshops, or on-line.

Mary Beth's blog

Information on 'Show Hope', the charity established by the Chapmans.

Choosing to SEE: What Lies Beneath

We were blessed in a million ways.

We looked like a beautiful family of bouncy, blond children, a handsome, gifted husband soon to be a big celebrity, and the lovely wife with the big white smile. That would be me.

But there was something wrong with this happy picture, because the lovely celebrity wife, wrestling with dark tides inside, was about to have a breakdown. And I couldn’t figure out why.

I met with the doctor. We talked for some time, and he said to me, “I don’t know if you’re familiar with the term ‘clinical depression,’ but I believe you’ve suffered from it for a long time.”

What I began to understand was that this was a medical condition. It wasn’t logical. It wasn’t a response to my environment. It had to do with my brain chemistry and coping mechanisms that I’d developed over a lifetime.

But God made me the way He did and gave me the story we’re living. And even though I am not your usual candidate for celebrity wifedom, I believe it is all about showing off His glory. If a lot of people are watching our faith journey, our marriage, and our family because of Steven’s musical success, then that’s great, because it will help to shatter the illusion that Christians are supposed to be perfect.

I was diagnosed with depression early in 1991. All these years later, I can see how the seeds of hope God planted then would need time to root and grow deeply into the faith that I have in the God of all comfort . . . so I would be able to withstand the terrible storms that would devastate our family in 2008.

Book details and sample chapters
UK paperback edition just published!
Price: £7.99
ISBN: 9780800719920
Available via all good bookshops, or on-line.

Mary Beth's blog

Information on 'Show Hope', the charity established by the Chapmans.

Choosing to See: 'How are you doing?'

When people ask how we are doing, the first thing I always say is, “I want Maria back. I want my son Will Franklin not to have this as a chapter in his story. I want my children to be healthy, my family secure. I don’t really care whose life has been touched or changed because of our loss!”

That is the heart of a mother who lost a daughter and is determined not to lose another child. I believe God can handle my heart, my questions, and my anger. It’s okay to want Maria back. It’s okay to be angry. The question is, what do I do with it all? What do I do with God? In the midst of such heartbreak, do I really believe that all things work together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose?

The answer to that question has come at a great cost.

* * * * *

I need to be clear. This book isn’t just about the spring day when Steven and I lost our precious Maria Sue in a terrible accident. It’s about a story . . . a story God is writing. All along the way, He has changed my story in ways I didn’t like. I’ve had whole chapters added and deleted and strange plot twists that I never saw coming.

The truth is, I was born with a plan. I wanted life to be safe and predictable. My plan was to marry someone with a nice nine-to-five schedule and have a tidy, organized life—everything under control.

Absolutely none of that came true!

Book details and sample chapters
UK paperback edition just published!
Price: £7.99
ISBN: 9780800719920
Available via all good bookshops, or on-line.

Mary Beth's blog

Information on 'Show Hope', the charity established by the Chapmans.

Gary Chapman Marriage Seminar - Reigate

"To last for the long haul, love has to be more than something we feel," says Gary Chapman, author of The Five Love Languages. His book Love is a Verb (Bethany) tells forty real-life stories of people who've put these principles into action, and now you can hear him yourself, as he will be leading a marriage seminar at Reigate Baptist Church on 4 September from 9.30-4.30.

For more information visit:

http://www.reigatebaptistchurch.com