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.
Written by Jonathan McGuire
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.
You Can Worship How You Want
Our family enjoyed a wonderful summer of camping in our new Airstream trailer this summer. I have written about our experiences learning how to use and set up the trailer in other blogs, but I have not really touched on our times while at the various campgrounds. Written by John Felageller
“Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp! Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe! Praise him with sounding cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals! (Psalm 150:3, ESV).
Our family enjoyed a wonderful summer of camping in our new Airstream trailer this summer. I have written about our experiences learning how to use and set up the trailer in other blogs, but I have not really touched on our times while at the various campgrounds. For the most part, all of the locations were quite nice and the various travelers were quite lovely people.
But having an autistic child is always a challenge when visiting new, unfamiliar locations, and being around folks who may not have an awareness of those with special needs. We really did not have any issues with kids or adults asking any questions, but that changed on our very last trip of the year.
We traveled to a small private campground a couple of hours from our home, and we arrived late on a Saturday so just had enough time to get set up and go straight to bed while under the cover of darkness. The next day we awoke and my son was his usual excited self, and my wife, wanting to give me time to shower and dress, decided to take my son on an early morning walk. As she walked through the campsites and came up to the common buildings at the front, she began to hear the beautiful sound of worship music, and decided to follow it to the source. She came upon the activity center where a Sunday church service was being held, complete with a pastor and a worship leader on piano, and rows of folding chairs. My wife decided this would be a welcome stop for them so she decided to sit for a little and enjoy some time in the Spirit.
As usual, my son loved the worship part, being engaged with the group and though being non-verbal, still made a joyful noise with his squeals and utterances. However, once the worship part ended, he began to get disregulated and as is normally the case, he began to get extremely sensory seeking, and proceeded to bang on and knock over the folding chairs. Startled and shaken, my wife reacted the way that we always do, she took my son and immediately left the space, apologizing her way through the crowd and out the door, and headed for home.
When she got home she shared her experience there and how bad she felt with our son having a small meltdown, but she also expressed how polite and respectful people were, asking her if she was ok or needed any help. She told them she was fine and thanked them, not being used to such concern from folks in public places, even at our own church services. I was grateful people were understanding, but still used to many of those interactions or comments from people, even when seemingly genuine, to just be things people say to get through the moment, and not truly intentional. But we were shocked when about less than an hour later, a small delegation of three people from the service, who also were long time campers there, came to visit our trailer. My wife must have mentioned that we were the family in the Airstream, since ours is still a fairly unique sight among other trailer styles.
The two men and a woman came in and immediately my son came to happily greet them, and they were just as glad to see him, and shared how they were just checking on us to see how we were doing. They kept speaking out their faith to us by letting us know that whatever happened was no big deal, that we were welcome there and that we would always be welcomed no matter. We thanked them for their kindness in checking in on us, and how much it meant to us that people would go out of their to make sure we were included, and suddenly our small living space was bursting with the Holy Spirit.
That morning, we just didn’t escape a challenging situation in a public place, we were actually touched by the Body of Christ in a special and unique way, and the campground just earned visitors for life.
Written by John Felageller
