Peace in the midst of YOUR storm (part Twelve)

When you have lemons, make lemonade the saying goes and that is so true. You see the true mark of a man or a woman is how they handle the bad times. Do they make it through to victory or do they give up?

Let me tell you about a man who showed us how to survive the most difficult times.

His name was Horatio Spafford.

He was a very successful businessman in Chicago; and when the great Chicago fire took place in the 1800's, it was a tremendous disaster and many of his friends lost everything they possessed in that fire. Many lost all their businesses.

At that point, Horatio Spafford took stock of his life, and he decided that he did not want to live for the things that he had been living for. He wanted to get to know Jesus, and so he felt that one way that he could facilitate getting to know Jesus without all the distractions of his job and his business in a big city like Chicago would be to move to Jerusalem. So, he decided that he was going to move his entire family to Jerusalem. At the last minute when he thought that all was arranged for the sale of his property, he discovered just before the ship was to sail with him and his children aboard that one of the deals had fallen through. So he took his wife and his four daughters to New York to put them on the ship with the understanding that he would meet them later in France.

Well, for reasons that he could not explain, he decided to change the cabin that he had booked for them on the ship and put them further up in the bow. The cabin in which he had originally booked them was amid ships, and he changed them to a cabin in the bow. Well, most of you will remember the rest of the story. His wife and four children were on that ship when it was struck amid ships by another vessel and sank very quickly.

Anna Spafford and her four small daughters set sail for Europe from America on the Ville du Havre. In mid ocean, on a beautiful night, a sailing ship rammed the Havre amidships and split her in two. Anna and her children rushed on deck, but as they huddled together in the chaos, the sea rushed over the afterdeck and fifteen minutes later the Ville du Havre sank. Anna was only one of 57 who were rescued, kept afloat by a piece of debris.

Horatio Spafford received a telegram with two words, "Saved Alone." It was signed by his wife.

When Mr. Spafford took ship later on to meet his wife in France, as had been originally planned, and to go on to Jerusalem, now completely bereft of all their children, the captain called him to the bridge midway across the Atlantic. Showing him the charts he pointed out that they were at that very moment, he reckoned, just over the spot where the other ship had gone down with his four little girls. It was then that Spafford wrote that beautiful hymn, "When peace, like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll. Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul," a hymn that has meant so much to so many of us.

You see, with Jesus in your life, no matter the problem you too can sing...

When peace like a river attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea-billows roll,
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to know;
"It is well, it is well with my soul."

Tho' Satan should buffet, tho' trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed his own blood for my soul.

My sin - oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin - not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to His cross and I bear it no more;
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh, my soul.

And, Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll,
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend-
"Even so - it is well with my soul."

For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live,
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life
Thou shalt whisper Thy peace to my soul.