It Is Well With My Soul

Have you ever experienced a moment of perfection?  Sometimes out of nowhere I get the overwhelming feeling of happiness and peace.  It’s so blissfully wonderful and it happens so rarely that I think I can remember each moment.  I’m not talking about the normal peace you feel the hour after school gets out for summer or the happiness that overcomes you when you find out that your loved one made it through surgery okay- I’m talking about all-encompassing  perfection.  And what I’ve noticed is that my life is far from perfect when these moments happen.  Man, God is good.

The last time this happened I was in my car driving from College Station to The Woodlands.  I was miserable with my job, my parents were about to move to Argentina, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life while all my friends were off getting married and being fabulous... basically I'd been feeling lost for quite a while.  I had the windows down because it was one of those unusual cool Spring days Houston gets, music blaring to try to drown out my thoughts and then it hit me.  I didn't know what it was but I knew exactly what kind of moment I was having.

Do you know the story behind the hymn “It Is Well With My Soul”?  You can read the full story here but the short version is that there was a man who tragically lost his young son then his business in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.  Then, 2 years later he sent his wife and 4 daughters on a ship to Europe for a much needed vacation but something happened and the ship sank taking his 4 daughters with it.  On his way over to Europe to meet his wife after all of the tragedy, he wrote this famous hymn.  Can you imagine that?

I can’t equate any of the hardships I’ve been through to what this man suffered but I do understand what he meant when he said it is well with my soul.  It’s a hard thing to remember for sure but that’s what I think those incandescent moments are…  A moment of incredible clarity, coupled with the overwhelming Grace and Peace that only God can give, reminding me that it is well with my soul.

“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.

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.”