Farmgirl Paints: it is well with my soul

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

it is well with my soul

We go to a contemporary service at church. Actually there isn't a choice, and most of the time I love it, but there is a part of me that misses the hymns. The old familiar songs I grew up with as a child. This Sunday I was singing along and all of a sudden they started one of my very favorites...It is Well With my Soul. Oh how I love that song.

When I was in high school our church choir went over to England and I was one of the "signers". I stood in front of the various congregations, nervously shaking to my core, and fluidly did the sign language to that beautiful song. At sixteen I didn't really understand the significance of the lyrics...the power in this man's message.

Horatio Spafford pinned this song after he had just lost his four daughters in a shipwreck. He was in complete and utter despair. UTTER DESPAIR! Can you imagine? And yet he wrote this:

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
- Refrain:
  It is well, with my soul,
  It is well, it is well, with my soul.
Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.
My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.
But, Lord, ’tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
The sky, not the grave, is our goal;
Oh, trump of the angel! Oh, voice of the Lord!
Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul!
And Lord, haste the day when my 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.

I look at my own life and all that I hold dear and I think to myself would I be able to whisper those words if I lost it all? Would I have that complete faith and trust in my Lord on that day?

Would my focus be on what really matters?...that our lives here are temporary and that heaven is our real home. That my sins are nailed to that cross and I don't have to carry them anymore. I love his focus. I love that despite his pain, he kept the truth close to his heart and didn't go down that path of why me?

These people are my everything, but they aren't really mine. They are loaners. They are entrusted to me, but ultimately they are HIS, as is everything.