Steven Curtis Chapman is sharing a song he wrote amid his grief of losing his daughter, Maria Sue, in 2008. The Kentucky native offered an acoustic performance of “Questions,” from his 2009 Beauty Will Rise album, in tribute to the tragic school shooting at Covenant School in Nashville, which left six people dead.

“Ever since the devastating events here in Nashville on Monday, this song (one I wrote several years ago from our family’s journey of loss) has been running through my heart,” Chapman writes. “So much heartbreak…so much sorrow…so many questions…one Hope.”

 

Chapman’s daughter was just five years old when she was killed in an accident in the driveway of their home. It’s a loss that Chapman still feels so many years later, choosing to focus on his faith than his family’s overwhelming sorrow.

“I’ve spoken about this before and it’s our story, so I’ll be telling it, I’m sure until the day I die,” Chapman told Everything Nash in 2020. “12 years ago almost now, our family personally walked through the greatest devastation. I did not think we would survive on many days even with our faith. … Often we think of the Bible as just the Word, that place I go to get encouragement and get reminded of what God says about things and all of that. But what I’ve found is that there’s some incredible, comforting verses that allow us to just cry out to God, ‘I don’t get this and I don’t even know where You are, but I’m going to survive it,’ because that feeling is in the Psalms.,”

“‘How long, Lord? Are you going to forget me forever?’ are the verses that I read there,” he continued. “And suddenly that was for me such a comfort to know I’m not the first one to travel this path of just not knowing how I’m going to survive this, or if I’m even going to survive it.”

Chapman’s Still Tour begins on Friday, March 31, in Atlanta, Georgia. Find music and tour dates at StevenCurtisChapman.com.

The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee has set up a fundraise to help victims and families of the shooting at The Covenant School. Make a donation here.