Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2020-04-15
Wednesday April 15th 2020
A Weekday Emailer from
Matt Matthews
To Members and Friends of
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
Dear Friends,
Some of our hymns are undergirded by rich stories. Such is the case with Horatio G. Spafford’s “It Is Well with My Soul.” It’s the stuff of legend. Here are the highpoints, borrowed from Ace Collins, Stories Behind the Hymns that Inspire America (Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2003).
In 1871 attorney and businessman Spafford wrote to some of his friends that he felt that he was “sitting on top of the world.” He had a loving wife, four beautiful daughters, a profitable business empire, and a successful law practice.
The Great Chicago fire reduced his real estate holdings to ashes.
Spafford arranged for an extended family trip to Europe, sending his wife a daughters ahead. In the middle of the ocean the Ville De Havre strayed into the path of a British ship. In twelve minutes, 226 people drowned. Spafford’s wife survived. His daughters did not.
Spafford booked the first ship bound for England. As he was sitting out on the deck, the ship’s captain approached him and said, “Mr. Spafford, we are approaching the spot where your daughters now rest.” Instead of being grief-stricken as he had thought he would be, Spafford said that a peace came over him and that he felt the girls’ spirit around him.
His poem poured out:
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.
When the Spaffords returned to Chicago, songwriter Phillip Bliss wrote a tune for Spafford’s lyric.
Click here for a Nashville version of this song:
https://www.wsmv.com/video/
News:
In case yofu missed them yesterday, here are MISSION notes: firstpres.church/HoM20200414
The Illinois Conference of Churches meet today via Zoom. Pray for us.
Your Session meets tomorrow (Thursday). Pray for them.
Good Word:
Romans 8, selected verses:
18 I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.
26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. 27 And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
28 We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.
31 What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? 33 Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. 35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Let us pray
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.
Much love to you all.
PEACE,
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
