It Is Well with My Soul - Wednesday, 04/15/2026

Song: "It Is Well with My Soul" (Traditional Hymn) [Click here to listen to the song.]

Scripture: Romans 8:35-39

"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."

Horatio Spafford wrote "It Is Well with My Soul" in 1873 while sailing over the stretch of ocean where his four daughters had drowned just weeks earlier. He did not write it because the pain was gone. He wrote it because he had found something that pain could not take away.

Paul asks in Romans 8 a question that echoes through every generation of suffering believers: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" The answer is an unbroken, thundering declaration — nothing. Not trouble, hardship, famine, nakedness, danger, or sword. Not death, not life, not angels or demons, not the present or the future. Nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This is not triumphalism that denies pain. Paul wrote Romans from a life full of suffering. Spafford wrote his hymn from unimaginable grief. The "it is well" is not the absence of sorrow — it is the presence of a God whose love runs deeper than our deepest loss. That is a different kind of peace, and the world cannot give it.

We all carry griefs that others may not see. Some of you are walking through seasons where nothing feels well at all — health crises, broken relationships, financial fear, or the dull ache of cumulative loss. This hymn and this passage do not minimize any of that. They simply insist that God's love has already reached the very bottom of it.

You do not have to feel well today to say, by faith, "it is well." That declaration is itself an act of trust — and trust is what opens us to receive the peace that surpasses all understanding.

Reflection Question: Is there a grief or fear you have been carrying alone that you have not yet brought fully to God?

Action Step: Write a brief, honest letter to God today about something that is not well. Then write Romans 8:38-39 at the bottom as God's response.

Prayer: God of all comfort, we do not always feel that it is well. But we choose today to trust that Your love reaches further than our pain. Anchor our souls in that love. Be our peace in the places where peace does not come naturally. Amen.