The story of the song:

This hymn was written after several traumatic events in Spafford’s life. The first was the death of his only son in 1871 at the age of four, shortly followed by the great Chicago Fire which ruined him financially (he had been a successful lawyer). Then in 1873, he had planned to travel to Europe with his family on the SS Ville du Havre, but sent the family ahead while he was delayed on business concerning zoning problems following the Great Chicago Fire. While crossing the Atlantic, the ship sank rapidly after a collision with a sea vessel, the Loch Earn, and all four of Spafford’s daughters died. His wife Anna survived and sent him the now famous telegram, “Saved alone . . .”. Shortly afterwards, as Spafford traveled to meet his grieving wife, he was inspired to write these words as his ship passed near where his daughters had died.

Bliss called his tune Ville du Havre, from the name of the stricken vessel.[1]

The Spaffords later had three more children, one of whom (a son) died in infancy. In 1881 the Spaffords, including baby Bertha and newborn Grace, set sail for Israel. The Spaffords moved to Jerusalem and helped found a group called the American Colony; its mission was to serve the poor. The colony later became the subject of the Nobel prize winning Jerusalem, by Swedish novelist Selma Lagerlöf.

Although the original manuscript reads “know” at the end of the third line, almost all recordings and written reproductions read “say”.

The lyrics, in full:

It Is Well With My Soul

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.

Refrain:
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has 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 the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O 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 wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.

But Lord, ’tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
The sky, not the grave, is our goal;
Oh, trump of the angel! Oh, voice of the Lord!
Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul.

And Lord, haste the day when my 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.

Horatio Spafford

Click here to view the embedded video.

But then, my mom never has had the creative turn of mind I do.  And, actually, the only resemblance I see is of the right side of the house with the attached single car garage at the back right turned at a 90% angle, facing the front.  Even that resemblance is slight because our house was white stucco and our double garage stood alone a bit beyond the small bedroom that was in the 90% angular turn.

We had an old windmill like the painting, although by the time we moved there in 1954 when I was nine, there had long been indoor plumbing and heating in the house.  My grandparents were among the first of their neighbors to put in electricity after beginning the South Plains Electric Coop in Lubbock that ran power lines out to the Abernathy house in the fall of 1937.

We did not have endless meadows filled with wildflowers sprawled beyond our yard full of day lilies and crepe myrtles like the painting either.  Or hazy blue mountains in the distance.  Our yard had tall Chinese elms standing guard around the perimeter – windbreaks they call them out there where the wind always blows.  Two massive cedars reigned outside the windows on the left side – the west side – of the house.  The bigger one scratched against my bedroom window at night, scaring me.  But, I left  the high window open, anyway, to listen to the sounds of the night.  The deep green cedars did look like the ones in my painting.  They are just placed on the wrong side of the house.  But, that is of minor detail to me.  I think what my painting most brings to my thoughts are memories; not precise recollection – memories.

My earliest memories of my grandparents’ house, before it was ours, are of early morning smells and sounds.  Coffee percolating.  Bacon frying.  My grandma’s soft voice and my uncle Oliver’s, mingled with the deep voice of my granddad talking with my mom and dad.  I cannot even recall where we all slept – and there were six in our family alone.  But, I do remember watching them all through the glass paned French doors that were closed between the living room and dining room beyond, with the small kitchen behind that, even.

An old upright piano stood in the living room to the left of the doors where I would later spend many hours practicing, hating every moment of it until it was too late to turn any latent talent into playing much more than simple arrangements for pleasure.  I deferred becoming accomplished to my sister, with her pianist’s hands and discipline.

When I look at my painting – and I do many times a day, as it hangs on the sea glass colored wall next to our bed – I see Texas in its glory.  I see times past when I was raised so naively innocent that I did not learn of some of the fundamental elements for really living until I was well into my thirties.  Innocence lost can be a sad state to live in, but then again it can be cherished for allowing diversity and depth to increase.  I am a better woman for having lived both lives.

My painting most reminds me of home.  It reminds me that I grew up in a good home, a solid home, a place where all that was evil lay somewhere else.  I keep those memories close to my heart, for I want my home now to be a safe haven and harbor to all shattered souls who would seek shelter herein.  I have been one of them, and am no more.  I am, and I want all who come here to be, at home.

Today, I want to be serious about something important that’s been on my mind and in my heart.

This past Sunday, our minister had an exceptionally good sermon from Proverbs about being wise about our families.  He stressed that we should lead Christ centered lives within our families and that doing so is THE most important thing we can do for our children.  If we fail in that, we have really failed in all, and I truly believe that.

In discussing how we should structure our family’s lives, he used an analogy I had never heard used before, and deemed it excellent.  He spoke of our country having U.S. Embassies all around the world on foreign soil.  Yet, when you walk into any one of them, you are considered to be on American soil and under the dictates of America’s laws and structure.

Likewise, we should each consider our own homes to be a Heaven’s Embassy, where a taste and touch of Heaven is found, rather than a war zone.  This resonated with me.

I have never delved much into my distant past here in this blog, nor am I going to do so today.  However, I will share this with you.  For years, I felt as if the weight of the world was on my shoulders always.  Even when I was in our house.  Often, it was a war zone.  In fact, I will never forget the overriding feeling I had the afternoon after my younger son, Mark, and I moved out of the house we had lived in for more than 14 years and into a tiny apartment in the same town.

More than anything else, when we came in the apartment amidst boxes and piles of things and I shut the door and locked it, I felt relief and a quiet calm that Mark and I were safe.  It was peaceful.  The entire world was outside!!  We were inside and this was truly our home!!  It was a place of rest and relaxation and love and spiritual solace.  It was a bit of Heaven.

I’ve felt that way ever since.  That was 34 years ago in January and my home – our home – has always been a God inspired respite from the world since.  I have not allowed satan (I refuse to capitalize his name or pay him any honor) to come in to cause division or turmoil or strife between any of my family members, and certainly not to reside.

I’m not saying we haven’t had troubles and trials and even tribulations.  What I’m saying is that when we close the doors to our home, the world is left out.  God is with us through all and in all and leads us in all things.  He is our protector and shield.  We war not with each other or ourselves.

Think about this today.  About making your OWN home an embassy of Heaven.

What say ye?

God bless each of you today!  Cheers!  And have a great weekend!  Dee

The day he brought the crock pot home, he came prepared.  He also bought a prepackaged chuck roast that had carrots, onions, potatoes & a seasoning packet with it.  He got up the next morning, filled the crock pot and “voila” dinner started simmering for hours, smelling wonderful.

It wasn’t until after dinner was over that I pointed out the fact that we could have purchased all of the parts and pieces of the meal separately for a lot less.  And I tried to do so gently, since he was not only a fledgling cook, but also a big help to me in taking over the dinner preparations.  Up until this point in his retirement, his daily crisis in life had consistently been “so . . . what’s for dinner?”  He always used those same words about the same time of day.  Just after I finished making him lunch and he ate it.  He immediately started worrying about dinner.

And, I mean, it’s not like I never fed him – or that he had ever done without too many meals.  It seemed to me to stem more from either a long ago insecurity over not being fed enough as a little kid or else (my theory) he had way too much time on his hands and had nothing better to do than harass me unceasingly about why I wasn’t spending hours each day in the kitchen.

[I must note here, too, that when he retired was about the same time that my blogging regularly became a problem.  I'm not casting blame, you understand.  I'm just sayin'.]

Anyway . . . he was so excited at his crock pot success, he decided to try something else in it.  He was completely enamored with his new kitchen toy . . . sensation . . . appliance and now wanted to fix everything in it.  Or, at least serve everything in it.  Including things we had always before prepared and served in big pots on the stove.  Like chili.  And crawfish corn bisque.  And gumbo.  And this proved especially so when we invited friends to come eat with us.  Whereas before we had usually had everyone serve themselves in the kitchen out of one of our big pots on the stove, he now thought our pots were just too “ugly” to serve guests from any more.  We now needed to transfer whatever we had prepared to the crock pot on the counter top where we could keep it warm.

I didn’t see the crock pot as being any better looking than our pots.  And, I certainly didn’t see any need to now have to wash and scrub two separate containers when one would do.  That just doubled my work load.  But, he wouldn’t be swayed.  When he finally, albeit reluctantly, agreed to wash up both containers for me, I relented.  But, I wasn’t a happy camper, I’m tellin’ ya.

This went on for two or three weeks – him wanting to fill the crock pot every other day with some big batch of food and then invite friends over to be served from it.  My freezer was already beginning to overload, but he was still at it.  And he thought his first try with the roast, et al, was such a success, he wanted to try another dish.  This time from scratch.  I had him peruse my cookbooks and every single recipe I had, but he found them all lacking somehow.  So, instead, he did what he had really wanted to do in the first place.  He jumped online to find a “perfect” one for him to try.   (Of course.  Why didn’t I think of that.  Where does one go these days.  I mean – how on earth had I managed all these years with only about a dozen or more cookbooks and piles of good recipes I’d collected from family and friends over half a century.)

It took him a while, but finally he found one he liked.  He printed it out and even went to the grocery store with me to purchase all of the ingredients.  When we got home, he pulled his crock pot out to set on the counter top for the next morning.  He placed all of his cans of corn, tomatoes and other veggies nearby, along with the box of chicken broth he needed to use.  The meat went in the fridge and he planned on getting up early to get dinner started in the crock pot because it was supposed to cook eight hours or longer on low.  We usually eat around 6 or 6:30 p.m., so time was of the essence.

The next day it was about noon before I came into the kitchen for the first time.  I’d had a really bad night and had slept very late.  I assumed Tom had everything under control.

I was shocked when I looked around.  The crock pot was sitting there plugged in with the lid off, but it only had a couple of things in it.  There were opened cans sitting all around with veggies still in all but two of them.  The box of broth had been opened, too, but was still full.  The meat was nowhere to be seen.  Neither was Tom.

I found him over at his desk in our living room talking on the phone.

When he finally got off the phone, I asked him who it was and what he had been doing all morning.  He said he’d been on his computer earlier, including Facebook, iTunes and YouTube, and then had phone calls from two friends and had called his brother.  The conversations had been long, he said, and had taken up a lot more time than he’d thought.

In other words, he’d gotten completely sidetracked playing around on his computer and talking with friends.  All morning.  It was now past noon and the kitchen was a mess with nothing cooking.  The cook had played hooky it seemed.  It was way too late to start his recipe that had to cook in the crock pot for over eight hours to be ready to eat.

But, I wasn’t upset.

Nope.  Not a bit.  I thought it was rather funny.

Besides – it gave me the perfect opportunity to say what I’d been dying to say since I’d come in the kitchen.

“So . . . ” I asked him.  Sweetly.  “What’s for dinner?”

I’m just a bit behind.  I was going to post this photo last week for Valentine’s Day, but then again, maybe it’s good to remember ALL the time that God loves us.  It’s mid-winter, so we probably need some reassurance of being loved.

I loved this photograph of the “heart” cloud, so am sharing it with you all today.

I have one more photo I want to share with you today, too.  This one is to remind you all that like it or not, cold weather out or not, cold bathroom tile floor or not, you really NEED to get your bath.

I think he is THE CUTEST CAT!! I LOVE his face.  I’ve actually seen that very same face on Tom a few times when he was having to go to the doctor to get shots and the like.

Y’all have a really BLESSED day today!  Truly!  God loves you & I love y’all, too!  Dee

A Jesuit priest named John Powell talks of an old Christian tradition that says, “God sends every person into the world with a special message to deliver, with a special song to sing for others, and a special act of love to bestow. No one else can speak your message, or sing your song, or offer your act of love. These are entrusted only to you.”

When you think about your own gifts, your own passions, your own special skills that you could use to “make an offering” to God, what comes to mind?  What do you feel passionate about?  How has God gifted or empowered you?  How has He infused His Divine Spirit within you in a particular way?

(These two paragraphs were borrowed from yesterday’s emailing to me from “This Day’s Sermon” on Romans 12 by minister Eric Elder.)

William Barclay

My blog has seemed to have had a life of its own these (nearly – Feb. 18, 2005) six years its been in existence.  Somehow, lately I feel as if my blog has lived its life and that I have no more to offer here so publicly.

There are always a multitude of things going on in my life – our lives – but due to the intimate, family nature of many of them, I cannot share them or discuss them here on my blog.  Sometimes I long to do so, but understand that anyone and everyone can read what I write and I am no longer comfortable with that in this age of disappearing privacy.

When I do speak out these days, which is not often, it is mostly on Facebook where my audience is limited to people I know or in emails to friends.

By nature I am a writer.  So, I do not know how long my absence will be here – hopefully not too long, but for now I’m taking a break.  What I am left with are the finest gifts anyone could ever receive – your friendship here in the Christian blogging world!!  Every one of you has brightened and made my life better for having blogged and having come to know you.  TRULY!!

So, I am saving all of those finest gifts – and email addresses – and FB friendships – and all that you each are, here close in my heart.  I leave the Barclay quote above because I want you to think about it for a while and dwell on it as you live your life.  I am doing that, too, because it is how I want to live and the kind of person I want to be.  Someone who sees and feels and hears the needs of others and gifts them with whatever they need before they can even ask.

Join me in this and leave me your comments on this post.  I know there are some of you out there who read, but have never commented.  Please do so.  Or, if not that, then send me an email at the address/link shown here on this blog page.

Love you all!  God bless each and every one of you & I hope to be with you again, soon.  Dee

Hope y'all had a great and blessed Christmas & will now join me in this new year praying for God's will to rule this land.  Closer to home, may we look to Him daily  in all we do.  At the same time, we're still in the beginning of what look's to be a really cold winter.  Last winter sure was & our December here was, too.  So, in thinking about that, I offer the following.  Dee]

It was late Fall, and the Indians on the reservation asked their new chief if the  coming winter was going to be cold or mild.  Since he was a chief in a modern  society, he had never been taught the old secrets.  When he looked at the sky, he couldn’t  tell what the winter was going to be like.

Nevertheless,  to be on the safe side, he told his tribe that the winter was indeed going to  be cold and that the members of the village should collect firewood to be  prepared.

But,  being a practical leader, after several days, he got an idea.  He went to the phone booth, called the  National Weather Service and asked, “Is the coming winter going to be cold?”

“It  looks like this winter is going to be quite cold,” the meteorologist at the  weather service responded.

The  chief went back to his people and told them to collect even more firewood in  order to be prepared.

A  week later, he called the National Weather Service again.  “Does it still look like it is going to  be a very cold winter?”

“Yes,”  the man at National Weather Service again replied, “it’s going to be a very  cold winter.”

The  chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every scrap of  firewood they could find.

Two  weeks later, the chief called the National Weather Service again.  “Are you absolutely sure that the  winter is going to be very cold?”

“Absolutely,”  the man replied.  “It’s looking  more and more like it is going to be one of the coldest winters we’ve ever  seen.”

“How  can you be so sure?” the chief asked.

The  weatherman replied, “The Indians are collecting a s**tload of  firewood.”