Those immortal words were inscribed first in the midst of pain upon the writer’s heart, then upon parchment for we who followed behind, to sing forever. 

Horatio Spafford had been a wealthy businessman in Chicago in the latter part of the 19th century. But money is not the all-protectorate. Spafford was ruined financially in the great Chicago fire of October 1871. To add immeasurably to his grief, he sent his wife and four daughters ahead on ship to Europe, but, while enroute, all four daughters died when their vessel collided with another ship. When finally reaching the other side, Spafford’s wife wrote this now famous telegram, “Saved alone.”

How does one cope with tragedy, with the unexpected terrible news of death, terminal illness, divorce, job loss, economic chaos and ruin? Or perhaps less dramatic, the turmoil of arguments that never seem to cease, upheaval in moving from family and friends, and of a life that simply seems laden with sorrow and burden? 

Though our movies and entertainment industry would like for us to escape into superhuman fantasy, the glitter and celluloid fail to touch our spirits with reality, for we are not superhuman. We hurt when pains afflict; we grieve when life’s turmoils spear a weeping soul.

Spafford’s perspective is instructive. A broken-hearted man boarded a ship and asked the captain to kindly awaken him when he had reached the very spot where his daughters had met their fate. When they arrived at that horrible place on an ocean of angry waves, this man could have well afforded, and all would have surely understood, the bitterness of angry tears toward One Who could have seemed like an unsympathetic God. Instead Mr. Spafford wrote these words:

It is well with my soul; it is well with my soul;
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

His poem further declared:

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.