When Peace Like a River Ran Through Ruin

In November 1873, Horatio Spafford stood at the railing of a ship crossing the Atlantic and stared down at the cold water below. The captain had just informed him they were passing over the spot where the SS Ville du Havre had sunk weeks earlier, taking all four of Spafford's daughters with it. His wife Anna had survived and cabled him two words that would haunt any parent: "Saved alone."

Spafford was no stranger to loss. The Great Chicago Fire had already destroyed his real estate investments. Now his children were gone. Standing over that grave of ocean, he had every reason to curse the heavens. Instead, he picked up a pen and wrote words that congregations still sing more than a century 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 is what grace does. It does not erase the sorrow. It does not pretend the sea billows never rolled. Grace is the inexplicable gift from the Almighty that lets a grieving father write a hymn instead of a suicide note. It is God meeting us in the deepest waters and giving us a song we have no business being able to sing.

You may be standing over your own dark water today. Grace will not remove it. But grace will give you a melody right there in the middle of it.