Often when I feel hard done by and discouraged, when nothing seems to be going right and I find myself repeatedly saying to God “Why, Lord?” my thoughts will drift to a man by the name of Horatio Spafford.

He wrote the beautiful hymn “It is well with my soul”.
The first two verses and chorus reads as follows:

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.

It is well (it is well),
with my soul (with my soul),
It is well, it is well with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

In the 1860’s Spafford was a prominent lawyer in Chicago. He was a wealthy man who had invested a large portion of his wealth in real estate. In 1871 the Great Fire of Chicago decimated the city and destroyed a huge portion of Spafford’s investment.

In 1873,  Spafford and his family decided to take a holiday in England, but he was delayed because of business, so his wife and their four daughters set sail without him. The daughters were aged two, five, nine and eleven.  While crossing the Atlantic their ship collided with another vessel and 226 people lost their lives. All four of his daughters died in the collision. His wife Anna, survived and upon arriving in England she sent him a telegram that began “Saved alone”.

Spafford immediately set sail for England and sailed over the same area where his daughters had lost their lives.  It was on this trip that he composed the words of “It is well with my soul”.

Only a man who knows God intimately and who can cling to God’s love in the amidst of horrific tragedy could have penned those words above.

I can only strive to follow Horatio Spafford’s example when the storms are buffeting my life and cling to the knowledge that as long as I am alive and as long as I choose to confess my faith in God “It is well, it is well with my soul”