A Song From the Deep

In November 1873, Horatio Spafford stood on the deck of a ship crossing the Atlantic. Days earlier, he had received a telegram from his wife that began with two words: "Saved alone." The SS Ville du Havre had collided with another vessel and sunk in twelve minutes. All four of his daughters — Annie, Maggie, Bessie, and Tanetta — were gone.

When Spafford's ship passed near the spot where his children had drowned, the captain came to tell him. Spafford looked out over that dark water and, somehow, began to write. The words that came were not words of despair. They were words that have carried millions of believers through their own impossible nights: "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."

This was not denial. Spafford grieved deeply. But standing at the very coordinates of his worst loss, he found something beneath his sorrow that his sorrow could not reach. He found the faithfulness of the Almighty holding him in the place where everything else had let go.

Hope is not the absence of grief. Hope is the song that rises when grief has said its worst. It is the discovery that even at the bottom, the everlasting arms are already there.

Whatever sea you are crossing today, the God who held Horatio Spafford holds you still.