Choosing to SEE - Mary Beth Chapman [23]
Steven’s second album, 1988’s Real Life Conversations, earned him four big hits, including the number one song “His Eyes,” which also received the Contemporary Recorded Song of the Year award from the Gospel Music Association in 1989. That year, he also won a GMA award for Best Songwriter of the Year. Released later that year, his third album, More to This Life, contained four number-one hits and in 1990 earned him an unprecedented ten nominations at the GMA Awards. He won five. His next album, For the Sake of the Call, contained five number-one singles and earned him another slew of GMA awards and his first Grammy in the Best Pop Gospel Album category.
We couldn’t believe all this was happening. We felt so grateful to God.
Steven was getting ready to release a new album, The Great Adventure, and would be doing big-venue concerts in just a few weeks. Our lives now included managers, booking agents, band members, crew, assistants, trucks, and tour buses.
My mom arrived to help take care of Emily and Caleb as I recovered from Will’s birth. She cooked and of course cleaned, vacuumed, mopped, dusted, and set everything in order. I couldn’t have made it without her. But every evening, about a half hour after dinner, my stomach would start hurting.
I ignored it; Steven was kicking off his “Great Adventure” concert tour with a seven-day rehearsal at Reunion Arena in Texas, and I was determined to get there for the opening night.
One night I woke up at about 3:00 a.m. The pain in my abdomen was nauseating and intense, radiating to my back. I literally had to crawl to my mother’s room.
“Mom!” I whispered to her. “Wake up! I don’t mean to alarm you, but if you don’t get me to an emergency room, I’m gonna die!”
She flew out of bed, we called a friend to come stay with the kids, and Mom took me to the emergency room, where I had an ultrasound.
“Honey!” my doctor told me the next morning. “You’ve got a couple of huge gallstones!”
I didn’t even know what those were, but the nice people at the hospital got them out of me with a little laser surgery. I hurt all over from the effects of that, and the, well, gas buildup from the procedure, but I was not a person to be stopped by mere physical agony. I flew off to Dallas that very weekend for the first show of “The Great Adventure” tour.
Again, we were blessed. And to everyone else 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.
10
My Friend Prozac
When my spirit faints within me, you know my way!
Psalm 142:3 ESV
Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck.
I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold.
I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me.
Psalm 69:1–2
People who don’t know much about depression often think of it as great sadness, and while it is that, it is so much more. I was sad, mad, frustrated, fearful, reclusive, critical, overwhelmed, and hopeless. No one wants all these adjectives . . . and certainly no one wants to live with a person who’s experiencing them.
And here was Steven, trying his best to understand, but because of his positive outlook on life, it was hard for him. I felt like he was just clueless to what was going on inside of me. We’d moved into a new house, I had three children under the age of five, and it was up to me to multitask my way through all kinds of challenges each day.
Meanwhile, Tigger the optimist was getting ready for his biggest tour to date. It would be full of ministry opportunities and happy fans who would applaud his performances and confirm how talented he was.
So as far as Steven’s managers, promoters, and music team were concerned, the single focus was “The Great Adventure