The Song Written Over the Grave of the Sea

In 1873, Horatio Spafford put his four daughters on a steamship bound for England. He planned to join them later. On November 22, the ship collided with another vessel in the Atlantic, and all four girls drowned. His wife, Anna, survived and sent him a telegram containing two words: "Saved alone."

Spafford boarded the next available ship. 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 would become one of the most enduring hymns in Christian history: "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 well with my circumstances." He did not write, "It is well with my emotions." He wrote, "It is well with my soul." That distinction matters. Faith does not promise us a life without shipwrecks. Faith promises us an anchor that holds when the sea floor drops away beneath us.

Spafford could have written a hymn of accusation. He could have written nothing at all. Instead, floating above the very waters that swallowed his children, he declared that the God who gave and the God who took away was still worthy of his trust.

That is faith — not the absence of grief, but the presence of God in the deepest waters El Shaddai ever asks us to cross.