Free Cinderella by Steven Curtis Chapman

Introduction

    Maria and Stevey Joy
    One night as I was trying to do some writing for my album This Moment —“trying” being the key word in that sentence—I took on bath duty with my two littlest girls. Stevey Joy and Maria were both three years old at the time, and they did not at all share my concern that bath time should run efficiently. In fact, quite the opposite: every time I turned around to get shampoo or a wash cloth, I looked back at the tub and saw only ripples in the bathwater, no girls. Where did they go? A few moments later I heard the giggles and saw the two princesses, Cinderella and Snow White (with a little help from Disney costumes), cheering,“We’re going to a ball, Daddy!” I was stressed with my workload, frustrated, and tired, and it was already late—well past an acceptable bedtime.“No,” I corrected,“you’re not going to the ball, you’re going in the tub.”
    Finally, after foiling two or three of their attempts to escape, I managed to get them dried off and hurried them to bed.“Dad, read us a story,” they pleaded.“No, no stories tonight! It’s too late,” I said.“We’re going to pray, pray quick, and go to bed! Pray a short prayer, immediate family only! Just pray, fast.” I was so frustrated. I had to go back to work—I was trying to write these songs and make some progress on the album. And finally, I got them to bed. “No, no more drinks of water! Nothing! Go to sleep! I love you. Good night. Lights off. Kisses. Good night.”
    I closed the door, and it hit me. I felt as if God leaned down and whispered this name: Emily Chapman. And I knew immediately that He was speaking to my heart. You see, my daughter Emily is now twenty-one years old, and she’s grown and gone off and is changing the world herself. And God was saying to me,“Steven, you big knucklehead, are you really going to rush through these moments like this and miss these priceless snapshots in time? Because you know how fast they’ll go by. Remember little Emily?”
    My wife and I have had the luxury of seeing our kids grow into wonderful young adults—and seeing with our own eyes how quickly these times really do go by. Thinking about this was very convicting and I thought,
    You know what? I do this so much. I do a lot of rushing through the moment that I’m in, and I miss some important times. And I think I’m probably not alone in this. I have to write a song about these priceless moments so that I won’t forget, and maybe I can help someone else remember it too.
    That’s the story behind the song “Cinderella” and the book you hold in your hands.

I worry about the five minutes or five days or five years ahead. Or I look over my shoulder and say,“Boy, that was great back there,” or “I should have done this back there.”God’s really been teaching me about making sure I’m showing up in the moment He’s placed me in—the good ones, the hard ones, the happy ones, the sad ones—every single moment. The moments on stage with my sons as the proudest dad on the planet, thanking God for this gift of getting to tour with Caleb and Will in my band, as well as that moment at 3:00 a.m. when the baby’s screaming and I’m wondering, What’s going on, God, and how do we deal with this?
    I believe God wants us to be engaged in these moments with our children, and all of the moments in between. I often hear talk in our circles about “God moments,” times when something particularly amazing happens and we know God is involved. While I’ve experienced plenty of those and am so thankful for those times, I believe every minute we’re drawing breath is really a “God moment.”God is showing up in every moment and revealing something about Himself to us if we just have eyes to see it and ears to hear it, and most importantly a