The Song Written Over the Waves

In November 1873, Horatio Spafford stood at the railing of a ship crossing the Atlantic and stared down at the cold, gray water. Somewhere beneath those waves, his four daughters had drowned when the SS Ville du Havre collided with another vessel and sank. His wife Anna had survived and sent him a two-sentence telegram that still haunts: "Saved alone. What shall I do?"

Spafford had already lost nearly everything in the Great Chicago Fire two years earlier. Now this. When the captain notified him they were passing over the approximate spot where the ship went down, Spafford returned to his cabin and wrote words that churches around the world still sing a century and a half later: "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 was not written from comfort. It was written from the middle of the ocean, over the grave of his children.

Faith is not the absence of devastation. Faith is what Spafford had — the stubborn, trembling decision to say "it is well" when nothing around you is well at all. Not because circumstances have improved, but because the God who holds the seas also holds you.

Whatever sea you are crossing today, the Almighty who carried Spafford's broken heart across that water is carrying yours.