When Sorrows Like Sea Billows Roll

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In 1870, life for Horatio Spafford and his family seemed to be splendid.

Spafford was a senior partner in a large and thriving Chicago law firm. He poured his assets into Chicago real estate. He enjoyed a friendship with the evangelist Dwight L. Moody. 

Within a few months, however, he and his wife Anna were shattered. Their four-year-old son died of scarlet fever.

Then Chicago was engulfed by the Great Fire of 1871. Spafford watched as most of his properties burned to the ground.

Seeing Anna’s spirits falter over the next two years, Spafford suggested that the family sail to Europe for some time away. A business concern delayed his own departure. But Spafford put Anna and their four daughters – Annie (11), Margaret Lee (9), Bessie (5), and Tanetta (2) – aboard the wooden sloop Ville Du Havre and promised to join them in England.  

Disaster struck on November 22, 1873.

As the Ville Du Havre approached Europe, she was splintered in a collision with an iron freighter. The ship sank in less than 12 minutes. Only 81 of its 307 passengers and crew survived. The only surviving Spafford family member was an unconscious Anna. Her four daughters were gone.

She telegraphed Horatio from Wales: “Saved alone. What shall I do…”

A devastated Spafford raced to the coast and boarded a ship bound for England. During the voyage the captain summoned him and indicated that “a careful reckoning has been made, and I believe we are now passing the place where the Ville Du Havre was wrecked. The water is three miles deep.”  

Spafford stood at the rail for a time. Then he retreated to his cabin where he wrote the words to one of the most cherished hymns in the English language:  

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.

My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought! My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to His cross, and I bear it no more, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

And Lord haste the day, when the faith shall be sight, the clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend, even so, it is well with my soul.

You can hear the gentle harmonies of the original hymn in this version by Anthem Lights.

Just when it seemed things couldn’t possibly get worse, they did. 

The church that the Spaffords attended and served in Chicago declared that they had surely suffered so much for a simple reason: God was punishing them for their sins.

This brings to mind a book that Dwight Carlson wrote some years ago. Its title says it all: Why Do Christians Shoot Their Wounded?

Here we should pause to note that sociologists recently polled Americans to assess their views concerning God. The responses fell into four general categories:

A Non-Existent God. About 10% of the respondents indicated they cannot buy the reality of a divine Being, especially in light of never-ending human suffering.

A Non-Involved God. This is the God of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin: powerful enough to launch the cosmos, but absent from any day-to-day connection with human affairs. Around 15% of our neighbors appear to embrace this option.

A Punishing God. Some 55% of the respondents opted for a God whose relationship with human beings is primarily based on obedience to rules and boundaries. This God is ready and willing to deal firmly with those who don’t comply.

An Accepting God. About one in five Americans picture God as someone whose essential posture toward humanity is outstretched arms of grace.

It’s not difficult to demonstrate that the words of Jesus, as recorded in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, strikingly endorse the notion of an Accepting God – a God who stands with us in our struggles and weeps with us in our suffering. 

But the majority of those who attend American congregations (of all denominational backgrounds) tend to see God through the lens of Law & Order. If something has gone wrong in your life, it’s almost certainly because you brought it on yourself.

Horatio and Anna Spafford were ultimately blessed with more children. But they were even more blessed to believe that God was a God of grace and new beginnings.

Eight years after the tragedy of the Ville Du Havre, they boarded a boat for the Middle East. From their new home in Jerusalem they launched a ministry to the poor – regardless of religious affiliation. Their soup kitchens, hospitals, orphanages, and philanthropic ventures came to be mutually trusted by local Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities. Horatio’s grave can still be visited today in Mount Zion Cemetery in Jerusalem.

Spafford wrote of a day when “the faith shall be sight.” That day has not yet come. Today it may feel as if your deepest hopes have been crushed beneath three miles of trackless ocean – and even some of your brothers and sisters in Christ are wondering if you’re the one to blame.  

But God says, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you” (Isaiah 43:1-2).

When sorrows like sea billows roll, it may seem as if everything has slipped through our fingers.

But we can never slip through the hands of the One who loves us.