Horatio Spafford was a successful Chicago businessman and elder in a Presbyterian church. His lovely wife Anna and he had five beautiful children, a son and four daughters. In 1870 their son died of Scarlett Fever. In 1871 their business was wiped out by the Great Chicago Fire. In 1873 they decided to holiday in Europe for time but business concerns held up Horatio so Anna and the girls took ship before him and the plan was he would take a later one and catch up with them presumably in France.
On November 22 at 2AM, the Loch Earn, an iron sailing ship, collided with the Ville du Havre. In the darkness, the Ville du Havre broke apart and sank in twelve minutes taking 226 passengers with her. Four of those were Horatio and Anna's daughters. Pulled from the water unconscious, Anna was taken to Wales. Stricken with grief and paying by the word she sent this telegram to a husband who probably only knew the ship had sunk and was desperate for news: "Saved Alone" "What shall I do"
Horatio immediately booked passage to England. It comes down to us that during that voyage, the Captain of his ship called Horatio to the deck one day to tell him that they were over the resting place of his children. The nature of steam and sail travel is time. Time we don't usually have or take these days. Horatio, a lawyer by profession, used this time to pen a poem.
Horatio and Anna would have three more children as the years went by. One of these would die of pneumonia. They seemed to live a life Job would understand and one would be inhuman not to ask God why? Why one family so much suffering?
i don't know why. i don't know why every day millions of people ride motorcycles and never strike a deer. i don't know why every day millions of people have terrible accidents and are hardly bruised. i don't know why my brother is in a coma or when he will wake or what his life will be like after.
But i do know that i am so very thankful that Horatio, my brother in Christ whom i never met, did not waste his grief or that idle time spent on his voyage. For almost one hundred and fifty years after he did, sitting in a lovely, shady little courtyard underneath the room where my brother's body lay in a hospital, his mind sank deep where none but God can go, i was able to sing Horatio's poem and find comfort in the God who knows all things and Savior who descended deeper than hell to rescue me.
When peace like a river attendeth my way
when sorrows like sea billows roll
whatever my lot Thou has taught me to say
it is well, it is well with my soul
Though the devil may ruin, dark trials will come
let this blest assurance control
that Christ has regarded my helpless estate
and he shed his own blood for my soul.
It is well
with my soul
It is well, it is well with my soul.
My sin, O the bliss of this glorious thought
my sin, not in part, but the whole
is nailed to the cross and i bear it no more
it is well, it is well
with my soul.
And Lord hast the day when my faith shall be sight
the clouds be rolled back as a scroll
the trumpet shall sound and the Lord shall descend
even so, it is well, with my soul.
It is well,
with my soul,
it is well, it is well with my soul.
