All Is Well With My Soul. Are you?

A typical weekend. Whilst Alex has her early afternoon rest, her face screws up, and immediately I ask her if she was okay. She then tells me that pain has erupted above the area of her appendix. Immediately, my nursing instincts kicked in and I give her two Ibuprofen pills along with a glass of water and something to eat, such as a sandwich. The latter is to prevent any side effects, such as stomachache arising from the medicine. The pain then slowly eases. However, if it doesn't ease, then I give her some oral morphine to help tackle the pain.

Painkillers of all shapes and sizes

So frequently this happens that nowadays, my sense of panic has somewhat eased. Thanks mainly to home treatment that eliminates calling for an ambulance. Or at least significantly reduces the use of the phone. Nevertheless, the pain that erupts on someone I love so dearly brings on the distress. Had I been the one to suffer pain - and I have many times throughout life - I wouldn't find the pain so distressing.

However, my wife would. All I need to do is to place my open hand over my heart, and she would be the one asking me if I was okay, even bordering on panic. That's from the vulnerability I now feel after a major open-heart operation I had in 2015 to replace a leaking aorta valve, followed by life on pills, enough each day to stock a pharmacy.

But it's watching my beloved cringing on the floor in pain that I find so distressing. As my own adrenal glands pump their hormones into the bloodstream, my emotions go haywire, I start trembling, I suffer a loss of appetite, tension, and on edge throughout.

It's this kind of situation when I ask God, Why? What is it we've done that's so horrendous in your eyes? Are you really that angry with us? And so it's easy for me to confront God, and then ask,

Why is it that so many other Christians whom I know well are so BLESSED? 

Here, I'm thinking of young middle-class couples with a university degree, good job prospects, and their recent announcement that a baby is on the way. They seemed so well blessed. Then I look at pictures that appear in the media - of young aristocratic and bronze-skinned couples frolicking in a large yacht at sea in the Mediterranean, under warm sunshine and sparkling blue sea. Not a care in the world and far from any thoughts of hospitalisations as the east is far from the west.

Even in my church, I once knew a respectable, middle-class professional couple who has four grown-up children and even several grandchildren. He also owns a yacht which he keeps moored at the coast. However, one of his sons is mentally handicapped, thus bringing extra pressure to the household. And it's this detail that brings me to the subject of this week's blog.

This week, like last week, I attended Encounter at the Kerith Centre in Bracknell. After refreshments, we sang an old hymn, All is Well with my Soul, written by Horatio Gates Spafford. No, before last week, I hadn't heard of him either, neither had I ever sang his original hymn. But behind this fine 19th Century Christian lies a life of tragedy.

Horatio Spafford was born on October 20th, 1828 in Troy, New York State, the son of Horatio Spafford senior and Elizabeth nee Hewitt. Horatio senior was an author of a gazetteer. Horatio junior grew up to be a lawyer. Like most church members around at present, Spafford was well-educated, wealthy, and a devoted Christian. He was friends with the famous American evangelist Dwight L. Moody.*

During the Spring of 1871, Spafford invested in real estate in Chicago. However, during the Autumn of that year, the Great Fire of Chicago destroyed most of what he had as the fire burned the city to ashes.

Spafford had four daughters from his marriage to Norwegian wife Anne nee Larson. They were Annie, aged 12, Maggie 7, Bessie 4, and an 18-month old baby. In 1873, Horatio planned a family trip to Europe, including England to see their friend Dwight Moody, who was ministering in Britain at that time. However, Horatio had to remain behind to conclude his business deals, so he sent his wife Anne with their four daughters on board the French steamship Ville du Havre to sail across the Atlantic Ocean. On November 22nd, the Ville du Havre was struck by an iron sailing vessel, sinking the ship and thus killing 226 people, including all of his four daughters. However, his wife Anne was one of the survivors.

After arriving safely in England, Anne sent a telegram to her husband across the Atlantic with the words, Saved Alone. After setting off to England on another ship sometime later, at Spafford's request, the captain ordered his crew to halt the ship precisely where the Ville du Havre sank. As he looked down over the rail at the water below, he knew that all four of his daughters were at rest on the seabed with 222 other passengers. He went back into his cabin and wrote his hymn, All is Well with my Soul. 

Later, Spafford had more children, including a son, Horatio Goertner Spafford, who was born in 1877. However, in 1880, Horatio Goertner died of Scarlet Fever at age three. Of all seven children they had together, only two daughters survived into adulthood: Bertha and Grace.

Horatio Gates Spafford.

Back in America, Horatio mourned for his loss, both of his real estate in Chicago and the loss of five of his seven children. But worse than that was the lack of support from his local Presbyterian church. If there was a man who needed loving support from his own spiritual brothers and sisters in Christ, then he was Horatio Spafford. Yet, there he was, onboard a ship peopled by strangers, leaning over the parapet to gaze at the sea beneath, knowing that way down at the seabed, his four daughters lay, with one of them not yet out of her infancy. Then he returned to his cabin to write his hymn.

In 1881, Horatio and his family set sail with a party of 13 to Jerusalem in what was then Judaea. There, he founded a Messianic Church known as The Overcomers together with some Swedish Christians by starting home prayer meetings. While he was there, he waded through Hezekiah's Tunnel, a water channel dug through solid rock in 701 BC under the leadership of Judean King Hezekiah, to divert the Gihon Spring waters into the city and out of reach from the Assyrians, who were threatening to sack the city. In the middle of the tunnel, Spafford discovered the Siloam Inscription, a Hebrew text carved into the wall commemorating when the two parties digging from each end of the tunnel met in the middle.

Horatio Spafford junior died of malaria on the 16th October 1888, just shy of his 60th birthday. He was buried at Mount Zion Cemetery in Jerusalem.

In the presence of the risen Jesus Christ, I can imagine a heavenly reunion with his five children, here all appearing as young healthy adults, never ever to be parted again.

If I can refer to another example of when human ingenuity was demonstrated. There was an American story of a married couple whose home was totally destroyed by a hurricane. When the pastor of their church arrived to give them some comfort, to his surprise, he saw the couple singing praises to God, right in front of the rubble which was once their home. Indeed, just like Horatio Spafford before them, these two had their minds fixed on heavenly and eternal glory, rather than on earthly and temporal things.

By taking into account the experiences both Spafford and the married couple went through, I can see the leaves of the Bible shaking in the wind. I'm referring to the Old Testament book of Job, a Middle Eastern nomad who, according to Bible scholars, lived about the same time as Abraham.

Like Spafford, Job too was a wealthy man, even if he lived in a tent. His wealth consisted of livestock and he had ten grown-up children - seven sons and three daughters. However, one day a hostile tribe arrived, killed all but one of his servants, and took away all his livestock, leaving Job penniless. After that, a storm overtook the house where all his sons and daughters were enjoying a feast. The roof of the house fell on them, killing all but one. When Job heard the bad news, he didn't blame God. Instead, he managed to thank God for everything he provided and praised him for who he is. Finally, Job fell seriously ill, even close to death, and yet he refused to curse God, even after his own wife attempted to persuade her husband to do so.

Indeed, the saying, The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, originated from this set of incidences recorded in Job.

The tragedies of Horatio Spafford and how they parallel those of Job has given me a proper perspective of our own difficulties in life. Such experiences seemed to have fulfilled what Jesus said to his disciples shortly before he was crucified: 

In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

John 16:33 AV.

Spafford, the unnamed American couple, and Job all knew that looking at heavenly glory eclipses anything the earth can offer. And the truth about Imputed Righteousness as being one and the same as eternal security of the believer, or simply put, Once Saved Always Saved. Sometimes, as with me, such wonderful truths thrive in my head, and I wonder whether these truths have really percolated from my head into my heart.

The American couple sang praises to God in front of a pile of rubble that was once their home.

Horatio Spafford sat down and wrote, All is Well with my Soul, after looking over the parapet over the site where his four young daughters drowned.

The nomad Job was able to praise and acknowledge the goodness of God after the loss of his wealth, his children, and his health. They all looked up to the stars.

It was a pity that the patriarch Jacob looked down on the mud. The grandson of Abraham through his son Isaac, Jacob was the chosen one to carry the Messianic Promise. Yet, at the loss of his favourite son Joseph, he kept on mourning for him many years after his disappearance, using his words, in deep sorrow I will go down to my grave - or - I shall go down to my grave in deep sorrow to my son Joseph. This is akin to saying, Woe is me! For everything is against me!

And so, Jacob spent the latter days of his life - more than twenty years I believe, living in a mournful, sorrowful state, his eyes focused on mud. How is it with you? How is it with me? Are you looking up to the stars? Or are you looking down at mud?**

Hezekiah's Tunnel, visited by Spafford.

Unfortunately, like Jacob, I tend to look at mud when the chips are down. Yet, I know that it would be utterly foolish if I was to renounce my faith in God! If anything, now is the time when I need to believe that God is sovereign and has the whole world in his hands.

Wondering whether a third world war will break out due to just one man's wickedness is one kettle of fish. Watching your nearest and dearest writhe in pain is quite another.  Watching someone - in my case, the only one who thinks the world of me and sees me as a tower of strength - crumpling in pain is very upsetting. But no, God is not angry with us. Rather, through our faith in him, he can show that we are his children.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Source: Wikipedia.

**S.I. McMillen MD, None of These Diseases, Lakeland paperbacks.