EVEN IF
Walking into the church building, the morning after my husband’s funeral was hard. The night before, there had been over 500 people at his funeral. At the back of the auditorium, chairs had to be placed because of all the family and friends who had come to honor this man who was a great man of God and loved by so many. I remember being surrounded by my children and grandkids, going to the last pew and sitting down. We got there right before communion and services started. After communion, I remember the song leader getting up. The song he chose was “It Is Well With My Soul.” I remember I could not sing that song because it was NOT well with my soul that my husband was not on this earth. I was not angry with God by any means. It was just too raw and painful to sing something I was not feeling at that moment! Losing my husband was one of the hardest times in my life. Those of you who are widows or widowers know exactly what I was feeling and the feeling of just being able to put one foot in front of the other.
The song “It Is Well With My Soul,” was written in the 1800’s by Horatio Spafford. He was a prominent lawyer and property owner in Chicago. Very wealthy and a Christian. He had four daughters and one son. He went through many loses. His only son died. The great Chicago fire destroyed almost every real estate he owned. In 1873, he and his wife wanted to “get away” for a while to Europe. (I understand that feeling of just needing to get away for a bit, to rejuvenate myself and just breath.) He had some business to attend to in Chicago, so he sent his wife and four daughters ahead in one of his ships. Shortly after, he got a telegram from his wife. The ship had shipwrecked, killing all four of his daughters. Back then, they could not get on an airplane and fly. He had to get on a ship and cross the same sea that had swallowed up his daughters. On his way to his grief-stricken wife, he wrote “It Is Well With My Soul.”
This song was borne out of unimaginable grief and heartache. But how could that be? How could someone write a song, almost 150 years ago, that has touched so many hearts and is sung today? The answer to that is, he was a man of great faith and had hope in his Father, God! You know, hope is hard for us to see in this pandemic, fires, hurricanes and loss of so many lives. Sometimes we have to dig deep to get back that hope that God is with us and cares for us. Hebrews 6:17-20 tell us, “Thus, God determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” These verses are full of promise and hope, because God does not lie in the fact that He has promised through His word, that we will have salvation and promise of heaven, if we are followers of Him. Hope is like an anchor in the fact that it is secure. When a boat lowers its anchor, it stays put. Even the huge waves cannot cause that security to fail. It does not mean the waves are gone, but there is an anchor holding that ship firm. Just like in our lives, those “huge waves” can seem overwhelming at times. But when we have Jesus as our anchor, we can turn to Him and be anchored in His promises. That makes me feel safe, secure, held and loved by Him.
A popular singing group, Mercy Me, has an amazing song out right now, called “Even If.” As we all know, sometimes things are going well in our world. We feel like singing and cannot keep that smile off our faces. But then we have times when that smile “is upside down.” When that frown feels like it is going into the very morrow of our bones because of happenings in our lives. There are times when our prayers are answered and times, they are not according to how WE want them to be answered. This song tells us even if, things do not go the way we think they should, that we need to lean on this hope and the promises that God is taking care of us, working through us and is with us, even when we do not feel that He is. We need to remember that God is with us no matter what. Even the times, when we are doing wrong or even when we are faithful and are reaching out to Him in prayer, we need to remember His promises and keep them an anchor for our souls.
That statement goes back to me walking into the church building, which a few hours earlier, held my husband’s physical body. A time when I felt that heart wrenching pain. That first song I heard, did not hold the comfort that I felt I needed at that time. But since then, when I hear this song, it holds memories and also deep love and respect for our Father God. Sometimes we just have to go through a lot of huge, scary waves to get to the true meaning of having hope anchored within our hearts. Titus 1:1-3 reads, “Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s elect and the acknowledgement of the truth which accords with godliness, in the hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began, but has in due time manifested His word through preaching, which was committed to me according to the commandment of God our Savior…” That hope of an eternal life when we leave this world, is what sustains us when we are fearful of what the future holds, when we fall in the “mud” of life and when everyone else is against us. Our hope is imbedded in the fact that Jesus died for us so many years ago to save us from sin and one day we will live forever with Him.
When we sing that song at church now, tears come to my eyes not because of me not feeling it is well with my soul, but because I see the hope that God has given us through the death of His only Son, Jesus Christ. I see that no matter what I am going through-EVEN IF it is good or bad-EVEN IF I do not know what is in the future-EVEN IF I have grief so overwhelming that I can hardly breath-EVEN IF our lives are a mess-EVEN IF my home has burned to the ground and there is nothing left-EVEN IF a hurricane has destroyed, with water, everything in its path-EVEN IF this silent virus has brought death to several family members-EVEN IF the answer to prayer is not what I wanted-EVEN IF I have lost my job and business-EVEN IF my family is going hungry and I have to sit in a line of cars to get free food-EVEN IF sickness and pain is ravaging my body; I need to have faith and trust in my God who is with me helping me take one more step at a time-one more breath at a time, with the realization that there is hope in a better place when we leave this earth!
EVEN IF is something to think about and pray about, isn’t it? Hold onto that anchor of the soul-hope. Sometime in the future, maybe in the next minute we or someone we love, will leave this earth or we might lose everything on this earth. Realize, even in the tough times, God is right by our side. We just need to reach out to Him! I will leave you with a verse in Psalm, that I hold onto. Psalm 37:23-24 reads “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholds him with His hand.” There is no better hand I want to hold on to,how about you?
It is not easy, but “EVEN IF” we feel hope is far from us, we need to learn to say “IT IS WELL, WITH MY SOUL.”
Till next time! Keela
(Just a side note. One of our technicians, at work, fell yesterday. She will be ok but is in pain right now. Pray for her healing and peace.)