A Daily Dose of God

 

                                           It is Well with My Soul – Song & Story

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReApJymYSiw

 

Horatio Gates Spafford (October 20, 1828, Troy, New York– October 16, 1888, Jerusalem) was a prominent American lawyer and Presbyterian church elder.

He is best known for penning the Christian hymn “It is Well with My Soul”,

following a family tragedy in which his four daughters died aboard the S.S. Ville du Havre on a transatlantic voyage.

 

In 1873, Spafford decided his family should take a holiday somewhere in Europe and chose England and he sent his family ahead: his wife and their four children, daughters eleven-year-old Anna "Annie", nine-year-old Margaret Lee "Maggie", five-year-old Elizabeth "Bessie", and two-year-old Tanetta, because he was delayed by business.

 

On November 22, 1873, while crossing the Atlantic on the steamship Ville duHavre, their ship was struck by an iron sailing ship and 226 people lost their lives, including all four of Spafford's daughters, his wife, Anna, survived the tragedy.

 

Upon arriving in England, she sent a telegram to Stafford beginning "Saved alone." Spafford then sailed to England, travelling over the location of his daughters' deaths, and he wrote "It Is Well With My Soul" on that journey.

 

In August 1881, the Spaffords set out for Jerusalem as a party of thirteen adults and three children and set up the American Colony. The society engaged in philanthropic work among the people of Jerusalem regardless of religious affiliation, gaining the trust of the local Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities.  After Horatio died in 1888, Anna and the colony moved to a larger location that is now the American Colony Hotel, on Nablus Road.

 

The hardships of war caused great suffering in Jerusalem and the American Colony fed more than 2000 people a day in a soup kitchen and treated enemy soldiers side-by-side in their hospital facilities. (Adopted from Wikipedia by Dcn. Kelly)

 

Reflect on this part of the song:

 

“Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, o my soul

It is well (it is well)
With my soul (with my soul)
It is well, it is well with my soul.

 

 

It is well (it is well)
With my soul (with my soul)
It is well, it is well with my soul.”  Songwriters: Philip Paul Bliss / Christopher C. C. Stafford

 

Is it well with your soul?

 

May God Be Praised!

 

COVID PANDEMIC PRAYER

You are my refuge and my hope, I turn to You during this COVID 19 Pandemic and plead for Your intercession.  In Your mercy and Your compassion “… grant eternal rest to the dead, comfort to mourners, healing to the sick ….” strength to the first responders, compassion and endurance to the medical personnel, and wisdom to government leaders.  End this coronavirus scourge.  Send Your light to guide me as I wander in the darkness of this pandemic and give me the solace of Your eternal love today.  Amen.  [Psalm 143 and Collect from Mass Time in Pandemic Adopted by Dcn. George Kelly]