BY STEVEN RAY BOWEN
Body
Welcome to the “front porch.”
One sublime feeling that seems to be more common beginning in the cold days of December is that of peace. After all, it is one of the key messages the gospel-writer Luke records from those angelic messengers on a Bethlehem hillside two millennia ago: “Glory to God in the highest,” he writes, “and on earth peace, goodwill toward men” (2:14).
But the peace should not end when we turn the calendar over, and the holiday-season decorations are finally stored for another year. With the punctual arrival of 2026, we hope that a time of looking in the mirror comes, too, and we then walk away with a game plan for the new year. You understand.
We reach for outward goals during the early days of January, true, but it is more urgent to reach for something special within, such as peace.
Peace is that precious inward gem, more valuable than money, fame, even health.
It does not just fall out of the sky, of course, but it is something we develop gradually through both good and difficult times – significant time both up on the mountain top and down in the valley, as we say. Once we feel peace’s presence deep within, we can understand the apostle’s assessment that it is not a mere trifle. It is something "that passes understanding" (Philippians 4:7).
Few stories in all the world illustrate the power of peace more than the story of the old-time Horatio G. Spafford. In 1873, H.G. Spafford wrote one of the most beautiful hymns ever written. When I first considered the words of his great hymn, I could not help but think that Mr. Spafford must have had a life of some distinct difficulties for him to be able to carve out such a peace in his soul.
It would be many years after first meditating on his hymn that I would learn that we were right.
In 1870, Mr. Spafford and his wife Anna lost their only son to pneumonia. He was four.
A year later, tragedy struck again as Mr. Spafford, his wife, and their four daughters lost most of their income in the great fire of Chicago.
They held their lives together for the next couple of years, and in 1873, decided to take a trip to England to re-energize themselves. Mr. Spafford stayed back in Chicago a few days to attend to some urgent business, and he sent his wife and daughters on ahead. Halfway across the Atlantic on their voyage, an English vessel struck their ship, and it went down in less than 15 minutes. Spafford’s wife Anna survived miraculously, but the four daughters – Annie, Bessie, Maggie, Tanetta – did not. They were 11, 9, 5, and 2.
Spafford immediately boarded a ship to join his devastated wife in Wales. As he sailed, he spent many difficult hours on the deck of that ship looking out over life’s waters and grieving over his great loss. It is said that when the ship came near the place where the vessel carrying his four girls went down, Spafford felt a rare comfort and peace.
What many may not know is that years later, a daughter born later – Bertha Spafford Vesser – would write that it was on that journey that her father wrote his greatest hymn.
Somewhere during that rocky voyage, Mr. Spafford retired from the deck to his chamber and sat down tearfully to pen his greatest poem:
“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.”
Finding peace in tumultuous hours may be one of life’s greatest challenges. Human intellect and scholarship could hardly describe or conceive of such a thing. No wonder Paul describes that kind of peace as one that “surpasses every thought.”
Wherever our own life voyages take us, we can rest in the thought that we can find such peace, too.
When our own ships come into the harbor, we hope to be carrying in our own souls the sentiment of the great songwriter, “It is well, it is well, with my soul.”
Coach Steven Ray Bowen served as a teacher and basketball coach at Red Oak High from 1998-2012 and recently came out of retirement twice for teaching tours at Ferris and Waxahachie High Schools. He and his wife Marilyn (the “amazin’ blonde”) have slowed down some of their travels and reconvened in their evangelistic work with the Church of Christ of Red Oak at Uhl/Ovilla Roads, in addition to Coach’s work as a writer and author, including the working to publish “Crossing The Georgia Line” that ran in the Ellis County Press. Call or text (972) 824-5197, email coachbowen1984@gmail.com, and see frontporchgospel.com.
