The Song That Sailed Over Grief

In 1873, Horatio Spafford stood on the deck of a ship crossing the Atlantic, staring at the grey waters where his four daughters had drowned just days before. The SS Ville du Havre had collided with another vessel and sank in twelve minutes. His wife Anna survived and sent him a two-word telegram that still breaks your heart: "Saved alone."

Spafford boarded the next available ship to join her. When the captain notified him they were passing over the spot where the wreck occurred, Spafford went to his cabin and wrote words that have carried grieving people for over 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."

Notice he did not write, "It is fixed." He did not write, "It no longer hurts." He wrote, "It is well." That is the difference between healing and curing. Curing means the wound disappears. Healing means the wound no longer has the final word.

The Almighty did not rescue Spafford from his grief. He met him inside it. And out of that meeting came a hymn that has ministered to millions of people in hospital rooms, at gravesides, and in the quiet hours when sleep will not come.

Healing does not always mean the storm stops. Sometimes it means you find a song in the middle of it.