Ever wonder what the flip side of our wall art looks like?
Though the back of your wall art isn’t on display (it’s facing the wall, of course!) how the piece is finished makes a difference.
This new video on our YouTube channel takes a closer look at what’s behind our plaques….
At my church yesterday, we sang a hymn I’ve always found very beautiful: It Is Well With My Soul.
On a whim, I decided to do a little digging to see what I could find out about the person who wrote the lyrics. I was astounded by what I learned.
Horatio Spafford was a prominent attorney and real estate investor living in Chicago in the late 1800s. The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 ruined him financially, as most of his holdings were destroyed. Devastating.
Tragedy was not finished with him, though. Two years later, while he stayed behind to attend to some business, his wife and four daughters sailed to England. En route, their ship was struck by another vessel, killing 226 people on board - including all of Spafford’s children.
As Spafford sailed to England to join his wife following the accident, he wrote It Is Well With My Soul – crossing the ocean where he’d just lost his daughters (and probably passing near the same area).
Now – knowing that back story, consider the lyrics anew:
When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to know,
It is well, it is well with my soul.
Refrain: It is well (it is well),
with my soul (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.
(Refrain)
My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to His cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
(Refrain)
For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pain shall be mine, for in death as in life
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.
(Refrain)
What a testament to deep faith; Mr. Spafford certainly seems to have had it in spades. Something to aspire to.
(By the way, there was even more heartache in Spafford’s life. Following the loss of their four daughters, he and his wife were blessed with three more children – one of which, their only son, they lost at age four to pneumonia.)
The Spaffords and their two surviving children emigrated to Jerusalem where, joined by other Christians, they founded the American Colony – providing all manner of charitable support to the people of the area. He continued this philanthropic work for the next seven years until his death from malaria days before his 60th birthday.
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Yesterday was the 25th anniversary of the terrible accident that destroyed the space shuttle Challenger and killed her crew. I was watching the launch that Tuesday morning in 1986; maybe you were too.
That tragedy is something people who saw it will never forget. The other thing from that day that has stayed with me was the speech President Reagan gave that night. It was truly touching – and after all these years, brought tears to my eyes when I heard it again yesterday.
If you recall it, I’m sure you remember how it ended: We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and “slipped the surly bonds of earth” to “touch the face of God.”
That beautiful imagery was exceprted from a poem entitled High Flight, written by pilot John Gillespie Magee, Jr. Magee was an American who served with the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II (before the United States entered the war effort). He was killed at the age of 19 while on active duty in England. Shortly before his death, he penned the now-famous poem after a spectacular Spitfire training flight in which he flew to 33,000 feet.
When I visited the Air Force Academy with my father in 1990, I came across the poem in their gift shop. I was so moved by it, I purchased a copy.
Read it, and you’ll understand why it’s become a favorite of pilots and astronauts alike:
In memory of all the astronauts who have lost their lives supporting NASA’s mission of exploration:
Dick Scobee, Mike Smith, Judy Resnik, Ron McNair, Greg Jarvis, El Onizuka, and Christa McAuliffe (crew of Challenger), Gus Grissom, Roger Chafee, and Ed White (crew of Apollo 1), and Rick Husband, William McCool, Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, Laurel Clark, Michael Anderson, and Ilan Ramon (crew of Columbia).
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How Great Thou Art - a hymn just about everyone is familiar with.
As an outdoor photographer, I’m struck by how one of the verses speaks to the beauty that surrounds me as I’m out in the field working:
View of Lake Winnipesaukee from the summit of Mount Major (NH)
The hymn is based on a poem written by Carl Gustaf Boberg; the tune is a Swedish folk song.
Interestingly, the poem is supposed to have been inspired by Psalm 8. If you read that Psalm, you’ll see the continuity of imagery.
Over the years, verses have been added and different variations have been published; the hymn gained wide recognition and popularity when it was used in the Billy Graham Crusades of the 1950s.
We included it in the funeral service for my dear father last month.
Uplifting!
When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?
You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings,
and crowned him with glory and honor.
You made him ruler over the words of your hands;
you put everything under his feet:
all flocks and herds,
and the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air,
and the fish of the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.
O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Psalm 8:3-9
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