When It Is Not Well With My Soul

Today I want to introduce you to someone. This person is acquainted with grief. He knows what it is like to experience loss. He has been through it. Now I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking I am going to talk about Jesus and will relate it back to having a savior who is intimately familiar with pain and gets what you are going through.  Nope, although that is true and would be a good article.

Today I want to introduce you to Horatio Spafford. Horatio was a successful attorney and real estate investor who lost a fortune in the Chicago fire of 1871. Around the same time, his four year old son died of scarlet fever.

Horatio thought it would be good for his family to get away for a while so he sent his wife and four daughters on a ship to England, where he planned on joining them later. As his family was traveling, the ship was involved in a collision and sunk. Horatio’s daughters perished in the accident.

As Horatio travelled to meet his wife, he penned the words to the hymn, “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.

If you didn’t know the back story, this is one of those hymns that you would think was written by someone who had an easy life and never experienced loss or hard times.

As I write this and share about Horatio’s response to his pain, I’m fearful that you may think that I am saying that you are not supposed to grieve the hard, the difficult, the pain that is in your life. I’m fearful that you may think that I’m saying that we are supposed to gloss over it all and say that everything “is well with my soul” similar to answering “fine” when asked, “How are you?”

That is not the message here. I like Kristene DiMarco’s rendition of the song. In it she sings,

Through it all my eyes are on you. Through it all it is well.

Let go my soul and trust in Him. The waves and wind still know His name.

When we are in the midst of the storm, we can say ,“It is well with my soul” when we keep our eyes on Him. It is not well with my soul because of life circumstances. It is well because I know that God is in control. This does require a trust in God in the midst of the hard, which can in itself seem hard…sometimes impossible, especially when you feel like your boat is sinking. But, remember you do have a savior who gets what you’re going through and is intimately familiar with pain and sorrow. The same savior who calmed the waves and the wind is in control and knows what you are going through.

Hmm…I guess this article was about Jesus after all.

Written by Jonathan McGuire

Jonathan McGuire  is  the father of two sons and the co-founder of Hope Anew, a nonprofit that comes alongside the parents of children impacted by disability on a spiritual and emotional level. You can follow Hope Anew on Facebook here.

Hope Anew has launched the Hope Anew Online Community and would love to have you be a part of it! You can learn more at www.HopeAnew.com.

I Walk By Faith And Not By Sight

“I walk by faith and not by sight” 2 Corinthians 5:7. These words are painted on a board that sits atop my kitchen cabinets. It became my theme verse for many years. You might think it was because my faith was so strong and unshakeable that this was my mantra. After all, I had dedicated my life to serving God. I’d given up career options that could have been very lucrative, I’d gone to Bible school instead and become a missionary. But, you would be completely wrong. The opposite was in fact the truth.

My faith was so badly shaken that this verse served as a guiding light to me in my world which had shrunken to the size of my house, the screams and pain of my child and the darkness that seemed to enfold me in hopelessness.

I felt lost, adrift and like nothing made sense any more. When nothing made sense, including God, and darkness surrounded me, I would repeat this verse, “I walk by faith, not by sight.” It assured me that in my darkness and not being able to understand anything, especially God, that IS where faith begins.

Hebrews 11 is the great chapter that spotlights heroes of faith. You’re probably familiar with it. I memorized the first several verses in fourth grade. They are wonderful and encouraging and give us examples to look to of people living out their faith in God with victorious results. But it wasn’t until I was a parent of a child with special needs and life was desperate that I really took note of verses 35b-39 that starts with, “But others…” These “others” lived with just as much faith as those in the first 34 verses but their experiences in life turned out a bit differently “…were tortured…jeered at…cut open with whips…chained in prisons…died by stoning…sawed in half…killed with the sword…destitute and oppressed and mistreated. They were too good for this world, wandering over deserts and mountains, hiding in caves and holes in the ground. All these people earned a good reputation because of their faith, yet none of them received all that God had promised. For God had something better in mind for us.” And if you jump back to v.35, “They placed their hope in a better life after the resurrection.”

Is God able to conquer armies, close lions mouths, raise the dead, create dry ground where a river had been moments before? Heal our child? Pay for the therapy we can’t afford? Provide a great therapist or school? Yes He IS able. Will He? For some of us, yes. For some of us, no. Do I know why or understand? No. And until the resurrection, I won’t. His thoughts are nothing like my thoughts and are far beyond anything I can imagine (Isa 55:8) But I do know that He has a plan and whether His answer is yes or no, He sees me and He sees you. And until the day when we can see, we can walk by faith and not by sight.

Written by Sarah McGuire, Co-Founder of Hope Anew