The Song Written Over the Deepest Water

Horatio Spafford had already buried his four-year-old son when the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 destroyed nearly everything he owned. Two years later, he sent his wife and four daughters ahead on a ship to England. The vessel collided with another ship in the Atlantic. All four daughters drowned. His wife survived and sent a two-word telegram: "Saved alone."

Spafford boarded the next ship to join her. When the captain told him they were passing over the spot where his daughters had perished, Spafford went to his cabin and wrote the words that would become one of the most enduring hymns in the Christian tradition: "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 has been sung in hospital rooms, at gravesides, in rehab centers, and in quiet living rooms where someone sits alone with grief they cannot name. It endures because it tells the truth: healing does not always mean the pain disappears. Sometimes healing means the pain is no longer the loudest voice in the room.

The God who met Spafford over the Atlantic is the same God — Jehovah Rapha, the Lord Who Heals — who meets you in whatever waters you are crossing today. He does not always calm the sea. But He gives you a song to sing while the waves are still high.