The Song Written on the Water

In 1873, Horatio Spafford stood on the deck of a ship crossing the Atlantic. Weeks earlier, he had put his wife and four daughters on the SS Ville du Havre, planning to join them after finishing some business in Chicago. Then came the telegram from his wife Anna — just nine words: "Saved alone. What shall I do?"

The ship had collided with another vessel and sunk in twelve minutes. All four of his daughters drowned. Anna survived clinging to wreckage.

Spafford boarded the next available ship to meet his grieving wife. When the captain notified him they were passing over the spot where his daughters had perished, Spafford went to his cabin and wrote the words that Christians have sung 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."

That was not denial. That was not pretending the pain did not exist. That was trust — the kind that looks directly at the worst thing that can happen and still says, "The Almighty has not abandoned me."

Trust does not mean we understand what God is doing. Spafford never understood why his children died. But he chose to believe that the same God who walked on water was present in water that had taken everything from him.

Some of you are sailing over your own deep places today. The invitation is the same: not to understand, but to trust.