When Peace Like a River Runs Through Grief

In 1873, Horatio Spafford put his wife and four daughters on the SS Ville du Havre, bound for England. He planned to follow soon after. Nine days later, the ship collided with another vessel in the Atlantic and sank within twelve minutes. All four of his daughters perished. His wife Anna survived and sent a two-word telegram from Wales: "Saved alone."

Spafford boarded the next available ship to join her. Midway across the Atlantic, the captain called him to the bridge and told him they were passing over the spot where the Ville du Havre went down. Spafford stood looking out over the cold water that had swallowed his children, and in that impossible moment, he began to write: "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."

This was not the optimism of a man untouched by suffering. This was hope forged in the deepest darkness a father can know. Spafford did not deny the sea billows. He named them. And then he declared that the God who held his children also held him.

Hope is not the absence of grief. Hope is the voice that rises from grief's lowest floor and still says, "The Almighty is here, and He is enough." That is the hope the world cannot manufacture and death cannot drown.