Written Over the Waves

In November 1873, Horatio Spafford stood at the rail of a ship crossing the Atlantic and stared into the water below. The captain had quietly told him: this was the spot. Beneath these waves, four months earlier, his four daughters — Annie, Maggie, Bessie, and Tanetta — had drowned when the ocean liner Ville du Havre collided with another vessel and sank in twelve minutes. His wife had survived, cabling him two words: "Saved alone."

Spafford had crossed the ocean to be with her. Now he was crossing the very grave of his children.

Back in his cabin, something remarkable happened. He did not write a lament — though lament would have been righteous. He picked up a pen and wrote the words that would become one of the most beloved hymns in Christian history: "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."

No prayer could restore his daughters. No faith could undo November 22nd. But Yahweh, the God who had not abandoned Spafford even in the valley of unspeakable loss, had restored something that grief had nearly taken: the capacity to trust, the ability to breathe, the courage to say it is well.