It Is Well With My Soul

I wrote this some time ago, but now it has new meaning. It's easy to say you'll be faithful through anything, it's another to actually do it through the worst of things. Well, losing a child is the very worst of things, and so this is me doing exactly what I said I would do. "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him."

Horatio Spafford was a lawyer in Chicago, a supporter of Dwight Moody, a successful real estate investor, and a devoted and active member of his Presbyterian church. He met his wife, Anna, who was fifteen years younger than he was, when she was his student in Sunday school class. He admired her immediately, but waited until she was of age before talking of marriage, and paid for her higher education while he waited.

In 1870, their only son died of scarlet fever. Then in 1871, the Chicago fire destroyed his real estate holdings and wiped him out financially. Two years later, he was delayed by business from accompanying his wife and four daughters on a trip to Europe, and the ship on which they sailed was struck by another ship, sank, and all four daughters drowned. Anna was pulled, unconscious, from the water. When she arrived in Europe, she wired Horatio saying, "Saved alone. What shall I do?"

In the midst of his grief, as he sailed past the spot where all four of his daughters had died, on his way to Europe to fetch his distraught wife, Horatio wrote the hymn above:

When peace like a river attendeth my way
When sorrows like sea billows roar
Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say
It is well, it is well, with my soul

Horatio and Anna went on to have three more children, but in 1880 they lost yet another son. Their Presbyterian church, where Horatio had long had enemies due to his doctrinal convictions, condemned them rather than supporting them, saying that it was divine judgement. Pharisaical Calvinists still pass judgement on him today. ("Not Well With His Soul")

So the Spaffords emigrated to Jerusalem with a small contingent, founded the American colony there, and spent the rest of their lives humbly serving God and ministering to others in body and in soul.

Jesus, I trust in You