Making a data-driven argument is usually the aim of this commentary. Not today. Today is a reflection – subjective and entirely personal. Your indulgence is appreciated.
Each weekday morning around 8 a.m., the MetroNews team gathers to shape that day’s edition of Talkline. Hosts, reporters, producers, and content creators sit down to sift through a world of headlines – global, national, and local. In about 20 minutes, we narrow it all down to six to eight topics, along with the guests best positioned to offer insight. As Churchill once said – loosely quoted – there’s no problem so massive it can’t be handled in 20 minutes.
Last Friday’s meeting landed on an interview with the Most Reverend Mark Brennan, Bishop of the Wheeling-Charleston Diocese. The day before, the College of Cardinals had elected Pope Leo XIV, making Bishop Brennan’s perspective timely and compelling. Good radio, as we say.
During the interview, host Dave Wilson asked the bishop about reversing the trend of fewer young people attending church.
Wilson offered this thought:
“Personally, I believe, there are a lot of answers to a lot of problems, that people make over complicated, at church,” Wilson said.
Some listeners took exception, texting in disagreement. But on Mother’s Day Sunday, in a small Baptist church in Teays Valley, a moment offered unexpected affirmation.
The worship leader began to sing the hymn It Is Well (with My Soul).
You may not be familiar with it. Even if you are, you might not know the story behind it.
The hymn’s author, Horatio Spafford, was a successful Chicago lawyer and businessman, but no stranger to tragedy. In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire wiped out much of the city, including his real estate holdings. Eventually, years later, he would lose his son to scarlet fever.
In 1873, seeking to help with D.L. Moody’s ministry in Europe and give his family a break, Spafford sent his wife and four daughters ahead of him to England aboard the SS Ville du Havre. He planned to follow shortly.
On November 22, the ship collided with another vessel in the Atlantic. It sank in just 12 minutes. Of the 313 aboard, 226 perished including all four of Spafford’s daughters. His wife Anna survived and later sent a telegram from Wales that read simply, “Saved alone.”
Spafford immediately boarded a ship to join her. As it passed near the place where his daughters had drowned, the captain pointed it out. It was there that Spafford wrote the hymn’s now-famous words, capturing a staggering sense of peace and faith amid incomprehensible loss.
As the hymn played in church, a few reflections came to mind; affirmed as minutes passed into hours yielding the day’s end. One need not subscribe to Christian teachings, or those of any religion for that matter, to benefit.
1. A Declaration of Hope Amid Brokenness
It Is Well doesn’t sugarcoat pain. “When sorrows like sea billows roll…” It acknowledges deep grief, but still insists peace is possible. That message resonates in a society overwhelmed by violence, division, and despair. It reminds us that peace doesn’t depend on external circumstances, but on something deeper. Otherwise, where would we be?
2. A Critique of Materialism and Shallow Comfort
Spafford had every worldly reason to collapse; financial ruin, devastating personal loss. But his peace didn’t come from wealth or comfort. It came from faith. His life challenges a culture that too often equates well-being with status or possessions – things that, in the end, offer no lasting refuge regardless of spiritual beliefs.
3. A Message of Redemption and Forgiveness
One verse reads:
“My sin—not in part but the whole—is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more…”
That’s more than personal salvation. It’s about transformation. Healing from injustice. Restoration from past wrongs, and renewal of broken communities. All good things for all people.
So yes, Dave Wilson was right. Church doesn’t have every answer, but it has a great many including the ones found in an old hymn sung on Mother’s Day in a quaint West Virginia church.