When Sorrows Like Sea-Billows Roll..

 

November 10th marks the 50th anniversary of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, an iron freighter that sank in Lake Superior. The gale-force winds tossed the ship (carrying over 26,000 tons of iron) in waves of over 35 feet. All 29 sailors aboard the ship were lost. The event has been memorialized in song and stories, and in at least one museum display at Whitefish Point Michigan, near where the wreck occurred. The bell tolled 29 times, once for every life lost in the storm. Fifty years later, families are still haunted by the tragedy– a continuing reminder of the fragility of life, and the power and destructive force of winds and waves.

Some days, the hits just keep coming– an unexpected expense, a misunderstanding at work, a fender-bender during the commute, a plumbing nightmare, a migraine, the phone call with bad news.  Each new pain rolls over us, throwing us off balance, and trying to drag us under like a storm-tossed ship.

“Even so, it is well with my soul.”  The story of this favorite hymn has been told many times, but it bears repeating. ( It Is Will With My Soul. wikipedia.org )  The author of these words had lost everything– his only son had died; shortly afterward, he lost almost all his money and property in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.  A friend, knowing of his troubles invited him to bring his family to England for an evangelistic campaign.  Mr. Spafford (the above-mentioned author of the hymn) had to stay behind and sent his wife and four daughters ahead.  Their ship, the Ville du Havre, was struck by another vessel and sank.  All four of the daughters were drowned, and only his wife survived to send him news of the tragedy.  As he made the heartbreaking voyage to rejoin his wife, he passed the place where his daughters had most likely gone down.  At that moment, Mr. Spafford felt a welling of peace and hope beyond human understanding, which led him to pen the words that have given comfort to so many in the years since:

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.

Nothing can prepare us for the sorrows that sweep over us at unexpected moments.  Nothing can stop them, and though we know they will come, no one knows how high they will rise, or when they will crest and break around us.  No one except the one who set the boundaries of the sea, the one who has walked on its waters, and the one who can calm the storm.

God doesn’t remove the sorrows or tragedies from our life or prevent them from washing around and over us.  But for those who trust in him, there is a promise that we will not be consumed. We may be in a storm-tossed boat in the middle of a raging sea, but at our faintest cry, Jesus will walk on choppy waves to be by our side and bring comfort.  He will teach us to be in awe of him as he commands the winds and waves to obey him.  He will teach us to trust him in the good times and the bad.  He will teach us to say, “It is well with my soul!”

³⁵ Who can separate us from the love of Christ?
Can affliction or anguish or persecution
or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
³⁶ As it is written:
Because of You
we are being put to death all day long;
we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered.^[a]
37 No, in all these things we are more than victorious
through Him who loved us.
³⁸ For I am persuaded that not even death or life,
angels or rulers,
things present or things to come, hostile powers,
³⁹ height or depth, or any other created thing
will have the power to separate us
from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord!
Romans 8:35-39 (HCSB)