All's Well

Because it truly does end well.  I've been struck over and over this year with the thought, the knowledge that WE KNOW THE END OF THE STORY.  We truly need not fear, though oceans rage and mountains are thrown into the midst of the sea and the earth shakes because we have been given an unshakable Kingdom.
  Yet, it's so easy to fall into worry and doubt, and to deeply struggle with the unknown and unseen or what appears to be starkly, painfully real right in front of us, stretching on ahead of us with no end in sight.  Perspective is so easy to lose, to skew.  I'm not very good at drawing, but have had the opportunity over the past several years to teach drawing to children through Classical Conversations.  I've enjoyed the process of learning the art and structure of it myself, but I always find the perspectives class the hardest.  A line drawn slightly off, at the wrong angle, by the end will leave the whole picture skewed and abstract.  A good perspectives artist brings two dimensional images to life, they seem to come right off the page in a way you can almost touch and handle, wrap your arms and mind around.  Perhaps Picasso struggled with perspectives too.  His angles always askew.  His paintings don't really draw me in and invite me to rest and gaze a while.
   I think true, accurate perspective reveals the Godhead, invites us, draws us to gaze upon His beauty and purposes even in the midst of the unseen and unknown, the terrifying and heartbreaking.  It refreshes us with joy and hope.  Yet, how quickly, how easily I drift to drawing or perceiving the lines of the unknown in lines not judged or drawn out the GOD's faithfulness but out of my fears or failures, and life gets distorted, takes on false dimensions and gives place to fear rather than faith.
Horatio Spafford understood the need for eternal perspective based not on circumstance but upon Who God is, and this flowed out of that deep root.


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, it is well with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ hath 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 the 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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FexGqNDBK3g


Story behind the hymn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bvq3pYsHidA