The captain of the ocean liner bound for Europe gently knocked on the door of one of his passengers and requested the man join him on the bridge of the ship. Upon arrival, the captain spoke softly to the gentleman, “A careful reckoning has been made, and I believe we are now passing the place where the Ville de Harve was wrecked. The water is three miles deep.” The passenger turned and walked out onto the deck of liner and leaned over the rail peering into the water and allowed the fullness of moment to flood his mind and captivate his heart. Slowly but surely, words began to come to him and taking a pencil and tablet he penned the following words:
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.
These words and the verses to follow have since been immortalized into the hymnals of churches everywhere regardless of denomination or nationality.
What is behind these words and why are they so powerful? Perhaps the other details of the author’s life would help us understand their significance then and their significance now.
Horatio G. Spafford was a very prominent and successful attorney practicing law in Chicago in the 1860’s. He married his wife Anna and together they established themselves as an integral part of life amid Chicago’s hustling and bustling ethos. His successful law practice allowed him the financial resources to secure a large portion of real estate along Chicago’s famed waterfront. As a couple they befriended a young preacher named D.L. Moody who would go on to become a world renowned minister in the mold of Billy Graham today. To this man, they became close friends, Horatio became a close confidant, and together they both became among his most ardent supporters. They also began their family by giving birth to a son and four daughters. Their lives reflected financial, emotional, social, spiritual, and parental success. They were living the American Dream.
But then things began to unravel and circumstances would deliver some of the harshest consequences anyone could be asked to endure. In 1870, their four year old son contracted scarlet fever and died. In 1871 the Great Chicago Fire destroyed every one of Horatio’s valuable real estate holdings along the waterfront. Aware of the hardships that his friends had faced, Moody invited them to England to help him in a great evangelistic campaign that he was conducting in 1873. They decided to take their friend up on his request believing that by getting away they could enjoy some much needed rest, they could put some distance between themselves and the tragedies back home, they could spend time as a family enjoying the sights and sounds of London and its surrounding country, and though deeply suffering themselves they could help their friend whose success in ministry was flourishing.
So off to New York they went, hearts set on the excitement before them, with full intentions to board a French steamship that would take them to England. However, just prior to sailing, news came to Horatio that he was needed back in Chicago to attend to an important business matter that couldn’t wait until his return. He made the decision to put his wife and four daughters on the ship, return to Chicago, wrap things up as quickly as possible and catch the next ship to join his family. Having said his goodbyes, he departed back to his city where 9 days later he received a telegram from his beloved Anna. It simply read:
“Saved Alone”
You see, on November 22, 1873 the French ship Ville de Harve collided with the British vessel named the Lochearn and sank in only 12 minutes claiming the lives of 226 people. His bride Anna stood bravely on deck with daughters Annie, Maggie, Bessie, and Tanetta clinging desperately to her as the ship sank. Her last memories were of the violent waters tearing her youngest from her arms…the very waters that Horatio now fixed his focus upon. Only a plank that somehow floated beneath her unconscious body kept her afloat. Upon being rescued and realizing the fate of her daughters she broke into total despair until a small voice spoke to her, “You were spared for a purpose.” She would later recall to a close friend, “It is easy to be grateful and good when you have so much, but take care that you are not a fair weather friend of God.”
So we rejoin our story where we started and see a man who in three years time has lost a son, lost his fortune, and now lost his four daughters and he is staring out over the waters at the very location where the latest tragedy took place. With the grief of a father occupying one side of his heart, a vibrant faith residing in the other, and pen in hand he began to write. Let 's reread the words of the first verse again and maybe you will be able to connect the dots better:
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.
These are amazing words when placed within their context.
Life is broken. We all know that. Our world is full of broken relationships, broken families, broken health, broken motives, broken promises, broken morality, broken culture, broken…..you get the picture. We live in a broken world. To live in denial of it is to be like the proverbial ostrich whose head is found firmly entrenched in the sand. And it’s not as if our positive thinking can fix it either. We can’t wish it to go away and we can’t find a refuge that protects us from it. The truth is we take brokenness with us wherever we go, because if we are honest, we all know that we ourselves are broken. Scripture tells us we need a Savior, someone to restore what is broken. Christianity informs us that it is God himself who assumes that task.
All of the brokenness around us erodes a most critical fundamental pillar to life itself. It drives a stake in our hearts that lays claim to an idea that God, if he exists at all, is above all of this and doesn’t really care. We are told throughout scripture that God is good and God is faithful. The essence of scriptural faith is built upon these two important aspects of God’s character. He is good! He is faithful! Our broken world does its very best to get us to question that. From the very first days in the Garden of Eden, the seeds of discontent before God have been sown calling his goodness and faithfulness into question. These seeds of doubt demand that we abandon that belief and declare our independence with questions that ring of … “How could a good God allow…? and … Where is He in all of this mess?” The result is a loss of hope, or worse yet a sense in which… “I’m going to do whatever it takes to make sure I get mine and I really don’t care about the rest.”
You see…It is what we do to navigate the brokenness in life that is important. It is how we handle the broken places in life that makes up our legacy and defines our ultimate contributions to family, friends, and society. Three years of heartrending brokenness sent their best shots into Horatio Spafford’s heart demanding that he yield to the doubts they brought about his God. And seized the deepest grief that a man could imagine, he turned to his Creator and with brazen faith declared “It is well, it is well with my soul.” His recognition that God is good and God is faithful at a time when brokenness was screaming its loudest, seized the moment and carried him through his broken landscape. His loss was redeemed by God to be our gain in such a way that for the past century and beyond, we in the church can declare with him that same refrain. “It is well, it is well with my soul.” To this day, I cannot sing this great hymn without being overcome with its message and I try to affirm its truth each day of my journey before I retire at night.
We are reminded from scripture that brokenness does not win. In a place called Gethsemane some 2000 years ago, a man stared straight into the face of all of the world’s brokenness. The sight caused such anguish that we are told that he sweat drops of blood. The reality of the world’s brokenness was so great that he cried out to be rescued from its weight. That same brokenness was later placed upon him as he hung on a cross with such crushing weight that he cried out, “My God, My God why have you forsaken me?” It was on this cross that the scriptures tell us that Jesus absorbed the totality of brokenness and offered something called Shalom to our world in its place. The cost to us for this Shalom is to believe in that event and then live as if it’s true. Our faith in this act of eternal redemption begins the process of healing the brokenness in us so that we might heal the brokenness in the world around us.
In the glorious resurrection of our Lord Jesus that was to follow, God has forever declared that sin is ultimately defeated and that death will ultimately be destroyed and that the new heavens and new earth will one day usher in a Kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy that will reign forever. We affirm this truth over and over with the words, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” when we recite his prayer. It was in this truth that Horatio Spafford staked his claim when he penned those words.
What we do today has consequences, good or bad, that carry over to tomorrow. I urge you to make today count and take a step toward mending the brokenness that exists in your world. Perhaps it is restoring or renewing your faith in the good and faithful God. Perhaps it is mending a broken relationship, or helping to restore a broken family. Maybe it is to comfort those with broken health, or to question those with broken motives. It could be to make right a broken promise, or to change some broken morality. Maybe it is to help reform a broken culture. It starts with the little things. My prayer is that at the end of this day, as you close your eyes, and welcome the sleep that brings refreshment to your life, you will be able to join Horatio Spafford with all honesty and sincerity, and declare, “It is well, it is well with my soul.”
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