It is an unshakeable quiet confidence in God no matter the circumstance. It is the anchor that holds us steady when life’s storms avail.

Horatio Spafford’s journey, which led him to write the hymn “It Is Well with My Soul” is one of the most beautiful pictures of biblical peace. Spafford was a devout believer, husband, father, and successful businessman who sought to take his wife and four daughters on a holiday to England, but ended up staying in the United States due to some unexpected business. On the voyage east, the ship collided with another, resulting in the death of all four of his daughters and a telegram from his wife saying “saved alone.” In the midst of unthinkable sorrow and anguish, this hymn was born. Understanding the words in the context of all that was going on in Horatio’s life gives us pause to think.

It is easy to claim peace when things go well, but what if they don’t? This peace that Horatio sings of while in anguish is only that which can come from above. The sorrows equated to sea billows that roll can only be healed by the one who can quiet them with the words, “Be still.”

As Kevin Deyoung puts it, our “Sanctification is not by surrender but by divinely enabled toil and effort.” Essentially we are transformed by the grueling process, by learning how to trust, we come closer to him. Our peace encompasses our ability to worship and praise a good God regardless of where we are, and the knowledge that to be used by him is to be grown by him. It is an all-encompassing surrender that he is in absolute and complete control even if we don’t understand. It is acknowledging that sometimes our ability to be like Christ is in the very teeth of suffering, as it was his suffering that brought us life.

This is the same peace and assurance Horatio claims. That even though storms assail us, it is well with my soul. That “whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, even so! It is well with my soul.”