pray for steven curtis chapman and his family...

one of the daughters, age 5, of steven curtis chapman and his wife, mary beth, was struck by a car driven by their son, and died wednesday.

read the story here

i cannot imagine the grief of losing a child in any circumstance... and my heart especially goes out to the brother who will no doubt live with "what if"'s for the rest of his life.

the song, "with hope", written by chapman after the heath high school shootings in paducah, ky. in 1997 resonate again ...

"with hope"
This is not at all
how we thought it was supposed to be
We had so many plans for you
We had so many dreams
And now you've gone away
And left us with the memories of your smile
And nothing we can say
And nothing we can do
Can take away the pain
The pain of losing you, but ...

We can cry with hope
We can say goodbye with hope'
Cause we know our goodbye is not the end, oh no
And we can grieve with hope'
Cause we believe with hope
(There's a place by God's grace)
There's a place
where we'll see your face again

And never have I known
Anything so hard to understand
And never have I questioned more
The wisdom of God's plan
But through the cloud of tears
I see the Father's smile and say well done
And I imagine you Where you wanted most to be
Seeing all your dreams come true'
Cause now you're home And now you're free,

We can cry with hope
We can say goodbye with hope'
Cause we know our goodbye is not the end, oh no
And we can grieve with hope'
Cause we believe with hope
(There's a place by God's grace)
There's a place
where we'll see your face again

We have this hope as an anchor'
Cause we believe that everything
God promised us is true,
So we can cry with hope
And say goodbye with hope

We wait with hope
And we ache with hope
We hold on with hope
We let go with hope