The Song That Rose from the Sea

In 1873, Horatio Spafford put his wife and four young daughters on the SS Ville du Havre, bound for England. He planned to follow once business allowed. Nine days later, the ship collided with an iron vessel in the Atlantic and sank within twelve minutes. All four girls — Annie, Maggie, Bessie, and Tanetta — perished. Anna Spafford survived and cabled her husband two words: "Saved alone."

Spafford boarded the next available ship. When the captain told him they were passing over the spot where his daughters had gone down, Spafford returned to his cabin and wrote the words that millions have sung since: "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 hymn did not come from a man who had been spared suffering. It came from a man drowning in it. And yet something deeper than grief moved through him — the steady, ancient faithfulness of God, who does not always calm the storm but who never abandons us inside it.

Healing does not always mean the wound disappears. Sometimes healing means the wound no longer has the final word. The God who walked with Spafford across that dark Atlantic walks with you. And He is able — as only the Almighty can — to plant a song in the deepest sea of your sorrow.