It Is Well

In November 1873, Horatio Spafford stood at the rail of a ship crossing the Atlantic, staring down at the water below him. Weeks earlier, he had received a telegram from his wife, Anna: "Saved alone." Four of their daughters — Annie, Maggie, Bessie, and Tanetta — had drowned when the French ocean liner SS Ville du Havre sank after a collision. Only Anna had survived.

Now Horatio was sailing the same route, passing near the very place where his children had gone beneath the waves. He did not rage. He did not collapse. He sat down and wrote words that would outlast his grief by more than a century:

"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 faith of a man who has not suffered. That is the faith of a man who has suffered and found something — Someone — still standing on the other side.