It is well with my soul.

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.

Many of us have sung this hymn time and again, and as hymns do, it has drawn from us whatever healing or assurance we needed or wanted at the time.  “It is well with my soul,” is a universal desire, is it not?  But do you know the story behind the hymn? 

Horatio Spafford, his wife Anna and their four daughters lived in Chicago where he was a prosperous lawyer, a Presbyterian church elder described as devout, and real-estate investor.  The Spaffords were active in the abolitionist crusade, friends and hosts to many reform movements and their leaders, including Frances Willard of the National Women’s Christian Temperance Union and Dwight Moody who we remember as one of those igniting a religious revival in the US and Europe.  In the spring of 1871, the Great Fire of Chicago, decimated the city and by the end of the year had destroyed Spafford’s sizable real-estate investments. 

In 1873, the family was going to vacation in Europe but Horatio was delayed at the last minute; Anna and their daughters went ahead as planned on the SS Ville de Havre.  On November 21^st, their ship was rammed and sunk.  Anna, the only one of the family rescued, sent a cable to her husband saying only, “Saved alone. What shall I do…”

He booked passage immediately to reunite with his wife (can you imagine, booking passage and the travel time that entailed?)  As the ship approached the spot where his daughters had died, the captain notified Horatio and in that place he wrote the words to the hymn we sing today.  Imagine all he’d lost and yet he found comfort.  A letter written to his sister shared, “On Thursday last we passed over the spot where she went down, in mid ocean, the waters three miles deep. But I do not think of our dear ones there. They are safe, folded, the dear lambs.” (1)

Spurred by what has been referred to as a Messianic fervor, a belief that Jesus’ return was imminent and so the work of paramount importance, in 1881, Anna and Horatio with a small number of other Americans (the Overcomers) traveled to Jerusalem to create a Christian Utopian society, later called the American Colony, and grew a variety of philanthropic ministries including, hospitals, orphanages, and ‘soup kitchens’ that remain in some form today. 

I’d read the stories years ago, and I've sung the hymn countless times, but last week, the Horatio’s became real to me when I saw the name in the Protestant Cemetery in the Old City of Jerusalem. 

In a time when missionaries likely never returned to the places they called home;  when bringing your coffin with you into the mission field was not unheard of; after the heartbreaking tragedies that the Spaffords had endured, their love of God and desire to bring that love to others and with it the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ carried them through.  From Chicago to Jerusalem and then home.  

Will you ever sing this hymn in quite the same way, ever again?  

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.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Ville_du_Havre

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/americancolony/index.html

(1) The Prized Possession: Finding Hope, Worth, and Purpose in a Wounded World ; It Is Well, Jill Schaible, pg 150.