It Is Well with My Soul – Horatio Gates Spafford

Most guys would have thought of themselves as utter failures, if what befell Horatio Spafford had been their lot in a similar three-year stretch. Some might have tossed themselves overboard, a cry to purge the soul of torment. Spafford instead dealt with his tragedies with poetry that survives, in contrast to the deaths he mourned. “It Is Well with My Soul”, he wrote. Huh?! How could he say that? His method, juxtaposed to the events that caused his composition, speaks volumes, even a century and a half later. It must have been his own inner beliefs and experiences that girded him, and allowed him to navigate the grim events that he met…kinda like a life preserver.

Horatio Spafford and his wife Anna had their share of hard experiences, the aftermath of which showed their resilient spirits, particularly Horatio's, must have been rooted in something pretty special. One or two might have been sufficient to embitter the average person, but the third calamity seemed to have grown in intensity for these 40-somethings. They lost a young son to scarlet fever in 1871, but that was only the first of two earthquakes in their family’s life that year. A massive fire in Chicago nearly ruined the Spaffords, whose resulting real estate losses were overwhelming. Had he relied on his secular reputation as an attorney, Spafford might have reacted differently. But, he was also a Christian believer who had active friendships with the noted preacher Dwight Moody and the composer Ira Sankey, among others. His faith, mingled with his own grief, was reportedly what stirred him to work in the wake of these twin tragedies to help homeless Chicagoans burned out by the fire. By 1873, this 45-year old and his family needed rest, however, so they planned a European journey, in concert with an evangelism campaign that Moody and Sankey were pursuing. Spafford’s third calamity—a shipwreck at sea—cost him all four of his daughters, which he learned of remotely by his surviving wife’s telegram. While his anguish was palpable as he sailed across the Atlantic to reunite with his wife, there must have been other thoughts that were therapeutic for him on that voyage. He couldn’t throw himself into work as he did two years earlier. Instead, he turned his deep inward faith outward with the words he penned, reportedly as the ship passed near the spot of the first ship’s sinking. In short, he said ‘God has authored something that can subdue even this misery today’. 


Though “It Is Well...” was one of only a few compositions by Spafford, the story of its conception compels its use by other like-believers today. What human will escape death’s sting, as it robs him of someone, even many people he loves? There may be other episodes of disappointment or more punishing incidents, like Spafford’s real estate losses. Was Spafford coaxed to wear a life preserver as his ship crossed the ocean, lest he be lost like his daughters if a disaster struck? It seems he was in contact with something that kept him afloat. Have you found something that buoyant today?             

http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/s/p/a/spafford_hg.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Is_Well_with_My_Soul

Information on the song was also obtained from the books  Amazing Grace – 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions, by Kenneth W. Osbeck, 1990, Kregel Publications; 101 Hymn Stories by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1982; The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs, by William J. and Ardythe Petersen, 2006, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.; and Then Sings My Soul – 150 of the World’s Greatest Hymn Stories, Robert J. Morgan, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2003.