A couple of years ago I had the honor of leading worship for the ordination service of my dear friend, Jake Hunt, at Uptown Church(PCA) in Charlotte, N.C. Jake now serves as the Assistant Pastor of Faith Community Church in Prague and is one of the finest teachers to stand behind a pulpit. When he initially sent me the song list, the song that jumped out was the old hymn, “It Is Well”. Jake and I had actually taught a Sunday School class together earlier in the year about music in the church as well as the history and theology of certain songs. One of the songs I had used was “It Is Well”. The story of how that song came to be literally moved me to tears so much, that is was hard to finish preparing my lesson, let alone trying to teach the class.
Above is the video from Jake’s ordination service with me leading, “It Is Well”. It was one of the most incredible times of worship I’ve ever experienced. Something truly supernatural was happening that night, and it was nothing short of a glimpse into heaven from earth. It was that powerful! Pay close attention to the congregation singing for you cannot help but be moved. I’m convinced angels were present. Simply amazing!
For anyone who is interested, the story behind “It Is Well” is below. I hope you will be as blessed, humbled and moved as I was after reading it.
Soli deo Gloria!
It Is Well With My Soul
Author: Horatio Gates Spafford (1828-1888)
In 1871, Horatio Spafford, a prosperous lawyer and devout Presbyterian church elder and his wife, Anna, were living comfortably with their four young daughters in Chicago. They were still grieving over the death of their young son when the great fire broke out and devastated the entire city. Two years later the family decided to vacation with friends in Europe. At the last moment Horatio was detained by business, and Anna and the girls went on ahead, sailing on the ocean liner S.S. Ville de Havre. On November 21, 1873, the liner was rammed amid ship by a British vessel and sank within minutes. Anna was picked up unconscious on a floating spar, but the four children Annie, Maggie, Bessie and Tanetta had drowned.
A fellow survivor of the collision, Pastor Weiss, recalled Anna saying, “God gave me four daughters. Now they have been taken from me. Someday I will understand why.” After receiving Anna’s telegram, Horatio immediately left Chicago to bring his wife home. Her telegram read simply, “Saved Alone”. On the Atlantic crossing, the captain of his ship called Horatio to his cabin to tell him that they were passing over the spot where his four daughters had perished. He wrote to Rachel, his wife’s half-sister, “On Thursday last we passed over the spot where she went down, in mid-ocean, the waters three miles deep. But I do not think of our dear ones there. They are safe, folded, the dear lambs.” Horatio wrote this hymn as he passed over their watery grave.
After the tragedy, the Spaffords had two more children: a son, Horatio, born in 1876, and a daughter, Bertha, born two years later. Sadly, young Horatio contracted scarlet fever and died at the age of four. Then in August 1881, the Spaffords set out for Jerusalem as a party of 13 adults and 3 children and set up the American Colony in Jersualem. Spafford died in 1888 after contracting malaria.
