The Telegram and the Hymn

In November 1873, Horatio Spafford received a telegram from his wife Anna bearing two devastating words: "Saved alone." The SS Ville du Havre had collided with another vessel and sunk in the Atlantic. Anna survived. Their four young daughters did not.

Spafford had already buried a son to scarlet fever. The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 had consumed his real estate holdings. Now the ocean had taken his girls. He boarded the next available ship to join Anna in Europe. When the captain informed him they were passing near the place where his daughters had perished, Spafford returned to his cabin and wrote words that Christians have been singing for over a hundred and fifty years: "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 is not the language of a man untouched by suffering. It is the language of a man transformed by it. Spafford did not write around his grief. He wrote straight through it — and discovered, on the other side, something deeper than happiness. He found a peace the world cannot give and cannot take away.

The Almighty does not promise to spare us from sorrow. He promises to meet us inside it and reshape us into people who can say — not easily, but truthfully — "It is well with my soul."