It Is Well With My Soul

It is Well With My Soul

Horatio G. Spafford was a successful attorney and entrepreneur that lived in Chicago in the late 1800s with his wife, Anna, and five children. Despite his success, Spafford and his family were not spared from tragedy. He lost a son to pneumonia in 1871 and within the same year lost much of his fortune in the great Chicago fire. His business ventures once again brought success at the mercy of God and he decided the family would take a vacation to Europe.

Anna and their four daughters boarded a ship without Horatio as his presence was required for some last minute business before he intended to follow them on another vessel a few days later. On November 21, 1873, Ville du Havre  was struck by an iron Scottish ship and began to sink in the Atlantic Ocean. According to a survivor, Anna gathered her four daughters on the deck where they prayed for God’s mercy to be spared or His strength for resilience to stand fast for whatever would come. Unfortunately, all four daughters were lost in the tragedy as Anna alone was rescued by a sailor in a rowboat.

When Anna arrived in Wales she wired a message to her husband which began, “Saved alone, what shall I do?” Mr. Spafford immediately boarded a ship to join his wife. While the ship was on the journey, the captain called Spafford and informed him that he was passing over the location where his daughters had been lost just days before. According to Bertha Spafford Vester, a daughter born after the tragedy, it was in this moment that Mr. Spafford was meditating on these words which he wrote into song:

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.

Chorus:

It is well with my soul,

It is well, it is well with my soul

Anna Gave birth to three more children and lost one to pneumonia. In August of 1881, the Spafford's moved to Jerusalem where Mr. Spafford in buried today. 

We are seldom capable in a moment of seeing the far reaching ramifications of our actions. I pray that we all may rest with confidence in the peace of God as Horatio Spafford during this trial. It was through the tragedy of suffering in which he would write these words that millions of Christians sing every week as we celebrate our reliance on the one who is in control of the outcomes. I wonder what effects our actions. When all of physical life is shaking and bearing down on you I hope it is well with your soul.

I love you,

Jonathan