This beautiful morning I find myself taking a moment to reflect on Eric Metaxas’ book titled, Miracles. His book begins with a very scientific look at the profound miracle of life on our planet. In summary, the more we learn the less easily it is to believe Sagan’s seminal thought from the 60’s that life requires only two conditions – that some special kinda stars be present and the life giving planet be located just the right distance from said stars. Chapter four titled, Is life a Mircle followed by five titled, The Miracle of the Universe, will challege the worldview of any willing to thoughtfully consider. Thanks, Eric for another one worth my reading. You may remember Eric is the author of Bonhoeffer and Amazing Grace two of my favorite biographies about the transformational lives of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and William Wilberforce. Moving on…
However stirring the science, it wasn’t until the book’s end that my heart came completely unhinged. Eric is telling the story of Ken Crabb’s journey back to faith and in so doing shares the history behind the song Ken simply found himself singing. The song? It is well with my Soul, written by Horatio Spafford in 1873. Horatio was a prominent Chicago lawyer and abolishionist. In 1870 he lost his 4 year old son to pneumonia. The next year the famous Chicago fire nearly ruined him financially. In 1873 he decided the family needed a vacation and went big. He would take them to England but as so often happens, work got in the way. At the last minute he sends his wife and 4 daughters on ahead planning to join them asap.
The steamship Ville du Havre, on which his loved ones traveled, would strike another ship in the middle of night and sink in a mere twelve minutes. His wife was his family’s sole survivor. Grief stricken upon hearing the news, Horatio immediately left to join his wife in Wales. When his ship passed over the spot where his daughters had died, the captain told him so. As the story goes he began to compose the hymn for which he is now known, It is Well With My Soul. Amazing to think a grieving heart could be so full of hope to write such words. Amazing.
My head,upon reading these words, transported me back to 1979 and a gravesite outside Dayton, Ohio where I gathered with nearly my entire Sammy Morris Dorm brothers and mourned the loss of our friend, Jimmy Wheeler. Jimmy lived in the room next to Barry and me. He was the leader of our “Brotherhood” as the floor was called and still is. Full of life the year before and then gone in six months from colon cancer. I can still remember standing and singing that cold, damp day in 1979. I’m not much of a singer, mind you. That day, however, I sang. The song, no surprise here, of course, It is well with my Soul. I never knew the full story behind it until today. You can be well even when you are not. It can be well even when it’s not. Horatio’s chorus, kinda miraculously, can ring true, friend.
It is well, it is well, with my soul..
BUILT TO LEAD 