It Is Well With My Soul

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith, so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus, because of my coming to you again. (Philippians 1:21-26 ESV). I love some of the old hymns of the faith. This is not to say that I don’t love some of the more contemporary hymns and choruses of today’s church. I do. I simply don’t know the back stories of those as well. One of my favorites is “It Is Well With My Soul.” In 1873, a man received a message from his wife, who had sailed with their four daughters to Europe, where he had planned to meet them soon. The note read, “Saved alone…” She and the girls had been in a terrible collision at sea and their ship had gone down. All four daughters died. It was just the latest awful news in three horrifying years for the family. They had lost their son in 1870. Soon after that tragedy a massive fire ruined them financially. Then the horrors of the accident at sea befell them. The man was Horatio Spafford. As he crossed the sea to meet his grieving wife, he penned the words of this wonderful old hymn: 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. Really? It is well? What could anchor the mind and heart of a man in tragedies like these and free him to sing these words? The answer is always found in our relationship with Jesus. Paul certainly understood this. In the midst of all the difficulties in his life, he knew that it would be well. To live and continue to suffer for the Gospel, or to die and go to heaven, either was “well.” I know that’s a lot easier to say than to do; but, the truth does not change with the difficulty of the practice. The rest of Spafford’s story is interesting. Following the sinking of the Ville du Havre, Anna gave birth to three more children. On February 11, 1880, their son, Horatio Goertner Spafford, died at the age of four, of scarlet fever. Their Presbyterian church regarded their tragedy as divine punishment. In response, the Spaffords formed their own church, dubbed "the Overcomers" by American press. In August 1881, the Spaffords set out for Jerusalem as a party of thirteen adults and three children and set up the American Colony. Colony members, later joined by Swedish Christians, engaged in philanthropic work amongst the people of Jerusalem regardless of their religious affiliation. During and immediately after World War 1, the American Colony played a critical role in supporting these communities through the great suffering and deprivations of the eastern front by running soup kitchens, hospitals, orphanages and other charitable ventures. Four days shy of his 60th birthday, Spafford died on October 16, 1888, of malaria, and was buried in Mount Zion Cemetery, Jerusalem. It sure was “well with his soul”!