When Trust Becomes a Song

In 1882, Louisa Stead stood on the shore with her young daughter Lily and watched her husband rush into the waters of Long Island Sound to save a drowning boy. Neither her husband nor the boy survived.

In the crushing grief that followed — now a widow with a small child and no income — Louisa sat down and wrote a hymn. Not a hymn of anger. Not a hymn of doubt. A hymn of trust. She called it 'Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus: "Just to take Him at His word, just to rest upon His promise, just to know, 'Thus saith the Lord.'"

What strikes me about that hymn is not that Louisa felt no pain. She felt it acutely. What strikes me is that she understood something many of us take years to learn: trust is not the absence of suffering. Trust is the decision you make about where to place your weight when the ground beneath you gives way.

She could have written a lament. Instead, she wrote an invitation. "Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him! How I've proved Him o'er and o'er."

The Almighty does not promise us a life without loss. But He promises to be the ground beneath us when everything else falls away. Louisa Stead discovered that the hard way — and then she sang about it so that we might discover it too.