A Hymn Written Over the Ocean Floor

In November 1873, Horatio Spafford stood on the deck of a ship crossing the Atlantic and stared down at the cold water below. Somewhere beneath those waves, his four daughters had drowned just days earlier when the SS Ville du Havre collided with another vessel and sank in twelve minutes. His wife Anna survived and had cabled him two words that shattered everything: "Saved alone."

Spafford had already buried a son to scarlet fever. He had watched his real estate investments burn in the Great Chicago Fire. Now this. When the captain notified him they were passing over the spot where the ship went down, Spafford returned to his cabin and wrote the words that Christians have been singing for over a hundred and fifty years: "When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll — whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul."

That is not the language of denial. That is the language of hope — a hope that does not pretend the sea billows are not rolling, but declares that the God who walks on water has not abandoned the one drowning in grief.

The Almighty never promised us calm seas. But He promised us His presence in the storm. And sometimes hope sounds like a broken man singing over the very waters that took everything from him — and meaning every word.