Saved Alone. What Shall I Do ?

"Saved alone. What shall I do?" As I have written about before, many transitions in our lives come unbidden. They come with events so painful that we would never have chosen them in a million years. Yet over time we can choose responses which may bring to us and those around us the music of peace.

In the late 1860s life was good for Horatio G. Spafford and his wife Anna. They were living in  Chicago with their five children.  He had a successful law practice. Their home was always open as a place for activists to meet during the reform movements of the time. 

Until now Horatio and Anna had everything going their way. However, in 1870 their faith was tested by tragedy when their four year old son, Horatio, Jr., died of scarlet fever. The Spaffords were devastated. In October of 1871  Horatio faced another test of his faith. A few months before the Great Chicago Fire, Spafford being a wealthy man, had invested much of his wealth in real estate by the shore of Lake Michigan. Not only did the Great Chicago Fire destroy most of Chicago but most of Spafford's holdings were destroyed. 

The Spaffords did not despair. They still had their home and their family. Though their finances were depleted, Anna and Horatio used their resources to feed the hungry, help the homeless, care for the sick and injured and comfort their grief stricken neighbours. The Great Chicago Fire was a great American tragedy; the Spaffords used it to show the love of God to those in need.

In 1873 Anna's health was failing and hoping to put behind the tragic loss of their son and the fire and to benefit her health, the Spaffords planned a trip to Europe. The day they were to sail for Europe Spafford had a business emergency and could not leave, so he sent his wife and daughters on ahead and planned to follow on another ship in a few days. On November 22, 1873 the steamer they were on was struck by another ship and  sank within twelve minutes in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Only 81 of the 307 passengers and crew members survived this tragic shipwreck.

Anna Spafford was taken to Cardiff, Wales where she telegraphed her husband the brief and heartbreaking words, "Saved alone. What shall I do..." Horatio and Anna's four daughters had drowned. As soon as he received Anna's telegram, Horatio left Chicago to bring his wife home. Sailing across the Atlantic Ocean the captain of the ship called Horatio to the bridge and informed him that they were now passing the place where the steamer was wrecked. That night, alone in his cabin Horatio G. Spafford penned the words to his famous hymn, "It Is Well With My Soul." 

How many thousands, maybe millions, have been moved and comforted by that hymn? Click here to watch and listen to it performed by my friend Brian Doerksen.