When the Sea Could Not Drown the Song

In 1873, Horatio Spafford put his wife and four daughters on the SS Ville du Havre, bound for England. He planned to join them after finishing business in Chicago. He never saw his daughters again. The ship collided with another vessel in the Atlantic and sank in twelve minutes. All four girls perished. Anna Spafford survived and sent her husband a telegram bearing just two words: "Saved alone."

Spafford boarded the next available ship to join his wife. As the vessel passed near the place where his children had drowned, the captain notified him. Standing on that deck, staring into water that had swallowed everything he loved, Spafford wrote the words that millions of believers have sung in their own darkest hours: "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."

He did not write those words because the pain had passed. He wrote them while the pain was still crushing him. That is perseverance — not the absence of suffering, but the decision to worship in the middle of it.

The Apostle Paul wrote from a prison cell, "I have learned to be content in every situation." Contentment and perseverance are not feelings we wait for. They are choices we make when every feeling screams otherwise. Whatever sea you are crossing today, the God who held Spafford holds you still.