The story of my life (the story of, the story of)Īlthough I am broken, my heart is untamed, still I spend her love until she's broke inside Is frozen (the story of, the story of, the story of) I drive all night to keep her warm and time She don't feel the same about us in her bones I leave my heart open but it stays right here empty for days Hawn is professor of sacred music at Perkins School of Theology, SMU.Written in these walls are the stories that I can't explain Though the hymn begins with loss, it ends in eschatological hope for the day when “faith shall be sight.”ĭr. I was amazed at how closely this text, written over 100 years earlier, coincided with the struggles of these immigrants as they fled a hostile Vietnam in frail ships, miraculously arriving in Australia and other places.Īs the Vietnamese congregation, now residing in Spafford’s hometown of Chicago, sang the final stanza, I understood the power of a hymn to transcend time and culture to address human tragedy with assurance. Returning to Chicago 11 years later, the memories of the Vietnam War were fresh on my mind.Īs the Vietnamese congregation gathered to worship, they sang the same song every Sunday to begin their worship, “It Is Well with My Soul.” I didn’t need the words in English as I had memorized them as a boy. During my time in college, the draft was reinstated, protests of the Vietnam War were numerous and the riots surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention in the city were infamous. I hadn’t been back to the Chicago area since I had graduated from a college in a nearby suburb in 1970. I chose to attend the Vietnamese service, which I was told consisted of refugees from the Vietnam War-the famous Boat People who had fled Vietnam after the fall of Saigon in 1975. I had taken a group of youth to Chicago to work in an inner-city church that housed several congregations of immigrant groups. The hymn came to life for me in the summer of 1981. Yet I had difficulties identifying with the text in many ways. Its somber and peaceful music, written by gospel songwriter Philip Bliss (1838-1876) and named after the ship that carried Spafford’s daughters to their death, was spellbinding to a young boy. On a personal note, this was a hymn often sung on Sunday evenings in my congregation as I was growing up. There they established the American Colony, a Christian utopian society engaged in philanthropic activities among Jews, Muslims and Christians.Īfter decades of benevolent activities, the Colony ceased to be a communal society in the 1950s, though it continued in a second life as the American Colony Hotel, the first home of the talks between Palestine and Israel that eventually led to the 1983 Oslo Peace Accords. After the birth of daughter Grace in 1881, Spafford and his wife moved to Jerusalem out of a deep interest in the Holy Land.
This hymn is said to have been penned as he approached the area of the ocean thought to be where the ship carrying his daughters had sunk.Īnother daughter, Bertha, was born in 1878 as well as a son, Horatio, in 1880, though he later died of scarlet fever. Spafford left immediately to join his wife. Spafford cabled her husband, ‘Saved alone.’” Several days later the survivors were finally landed at Cardiff, Wales, and Mrs. “On November 22 the ship was struck by the Lochearn, an English vessel, and sank in twelve minutes.
In November of that year, due to unexpected last-minute business developments, he had to remain in Chicago, but sent his wife and four daughters on ahead as scheduled on the S.S. Hymnologist Kenneth Osbeck tells the story: “Desiring a rest for his wife and four daughters as well as wishing to join and assist Moody and Sankey in one of their campaigns in Great Britain, Spafford planned a European trip for his family in 1873. In a saga reminiscent of Job, his son died a short time before his financial disaster. Having invested heavily in real estate along Lake Michigan’s shoreline, he lost everything overnight. Spafford’s fortune evaporated in the wake of the great Chicago Fire of 1871. Among his close friends were several evangelists including the famous Dwight L.
He had established a very successful legal practice as a young businessman and was also a devout Christian. Spafford (1828-1888), was a Presbyterian layman from Chicago. With this hymn comes one of the most heartrending stories in the annals of hymnody. Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
0 kommentar(er)
