It Is Well With My Soul

In 1871, the Chicago fire ravaged the city killing over 300 and leaving 100,000 homeless. Horatio Gates Spafford, a lawyer heavily invested in the downtown real estate, spent the next two years helping those devastated by the fire. During this time, his only son died. Still, he gave himself and his time to the care of the brokenhearted, the homeless, and the impoverished.

In 1873 the Spafford family were to sail to England, but Horatio, held up by business, sent his family on ahead. He would join them on the other side of the Atlantic. But their ship collided with another and sank within twenty minutes.  Though Horatio's wife survived by clinging to a piece of floating wreckage, their four daughters drowned with hundreds of others. A crushing telegram from Mrs. Spafford had just two words: “Saved alone.” To be near his grieving wife, he boarded the next available ship and sailed for England. As he passed near the place where his daughters died, the words of the famous hymn “It is Well With My Soul” came to him.

“When peace like a river attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll,

What ever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,

It is well, it is well, with my soul.”

In one verse he writes: “For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live.”

Great trouble, deep loss and a sorrow that would crush most of us could not dislodge this man’s happiness. His happiness was not just a state of well being, it was the Supreme Being residing in his heart. It was not a frame of mind, a force of will, or emotional stability; it was a Person. To the world, happiness is elusive because it is as fragile as human nature. But to the child of God, it is The One who says, ”Lo, I am with you always. Even unto the end of the world.” It is a happiness that gives us the strength to grieve well.