When Sea Billows Roll

In 1873, Chicago lawyer Horatio Spafford put his wife and four daughters on the SS Ville du Havre, bound for England. He planned to follow after finishing some business. Days later, a telegram arrived from his wife Anna. Two words: "Saved alone." The ship had collided with another vessel in the Atlantic and sank in twelve minutes. All four of his daughters perished.

Spafford boarded the next available ship to join his wife. When the captain informed him they were passing near the spot where the vessel had gone down, Spafford stood at the rail, staring into the ocean that had swallowed everything he loved. And there — in the geography of his deepest grief — he wrote the words that Christians have sung for over a century: "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 in a comfortable study. It was written over a grave. And that is precisely what gives it its power. Spafford did not deny his anguish. He brought it before the Almighty and found that even the deepest waters could not drown the hope God plants in a human soul.

Hope is not the absence of sorrow. Hope is the presence of God in the middle of it. Whatever sea you are crossing today, the One who walks on water is walking with you still.