Six Words of Courage--The Horatio Spafford Story

Six Words of Courage-

The Horatio Spafford Story

By Kim Michael  Copyright February 2015



If you have read much of my work you know that a lot of what I write has a spiritual quality to it.  I know many of the people who read my work are religious, and I also know that many are not.  And it really doesn’t matter. Nothing I write has a religious agenda to it.  I do however, believe, that to become greater than one’s self it is important to aspire to something greater than yourself, and there- in is how faith can play an important part in life.

Even so, the topics I write about aren’t really even about faith so much as they are about human strength, and courage, and most of all hope; of which “faith” is often a major part.    

A case in point; there is a touching story that I heard many years ago about one of the most beloved hymns ever written.  

It begins with a man, Horatio Gates Spafford; a senior partner in a prominent law firm in Chicago and real estate developer. He and his wife Anna Larson Spafford and their four daughters were well known in the social circles in Chicago in the mid 1800s.  Then in 1871 disaster struck.  The Great Chicago Fire destroyed much of the Spafford Family’s financial fortune and then the economy downturn of 1873 following the great fire essentially took the rest.  

With only a little money left the Spafford family decided to take a holiday in England to spend time with friends and recover from their losses, but disaster was yet to strike again.

At the last minute Horatio had to stay behind to finish legal issues caused by the fire, sending Anna his wife and his four daughters on a ship a head of him.  While crossing the Atlantic in the dead of night the SS Ville du Havre struck another ship and sank.  Two hundred twenty six people were lost.    

Horatio’s wife survived, and the telegram she sent to her husband was only two words.  

“Saved…alone.” 

All four of Horatio's daughters: eleven-year-old Tanetta, nine-year-old  Elizabeth "Bessie", five-year-old Margret Lee, and two-year-old Anna were lost.   

Shortly after Spafford boarded another ship that would take him to his  grieving wife in England.  Half way through the journey the Captain came to Horatio’s door.  “Sir we are at the place where the Havre went down, I thought you would like to know.”

Horatio Spafford donned his heavy coat and hat and walked out into a raging storm to stand on deck and look at the resting place where all four of his little girls were lost, and as he stood there, wind and rain beating down on him, he slipped a pen and a piece of paper from his pocket and wrote the gentle words—“It is Well with My Soul.”  

Eventually he would finish those words and Philip Bliss would write the music.  

Even now when I hear that hymn, I see Horatio Spafford standing on the deck of that ship in a raging storm, broken hearted, yet writing his six words of strength and hope.  And I am touched by how often in the midst of our greatest tragedies; something beautiful and meaningful can come.  And how something as intangible as faith-- can be the difference.