~ Riley Owen Hitt ~ Happy Third Birthay ~ It Is Well With My Soul ~

It's been three years since you came into the world to bless your family with your love. Our fondest wish would be to celebrate your third birthday with you here on this earth... but our Father chose otherwise.

Today you are celebrating your third earthly-birthday in heaven with Jesus and His angels. To imagine you being there brings joy to our heart, but to know we can not hug you and see you try to blow out birthday candles brings us deep sorrow. How could we have known you would only be with us a few short weeks! Oh, the pain and sorrow death brings!

However, time is our friend when it comes to sorrow... it lessens the heartache and we are able to think of other things. But this one thing we can never forget and that's how precious it felt to hold you in our arms. The pain and suffering we went through was worth the joy of your birth and the joy of holding you in our arms.

We pray for Jesus to give you our love and we look forward to that great reunion day when we shall once again hold you tight. The joy we will have at that moment will erase all the sorrows we've endured. Yes, it is well with our souls.

The music you've been listening to (It Is Well With My Soul) is by Horatio Spafford who suffered many great losses and we felt it fitting to include Spafford's own sorrowful journey and the words to his song.

Horatio Spafford and his wife Anna were still grieving over the death of their infant son when the Great Chicago fire happened. Horatio was a lawyer there, and he was a friend of the famous preacher Dwight L. Moody. Spafford had invested heavily in real estate, so when the Great Chicago Fire happened he lost almost everything he owned.

Two years later, in1873, Spafford decided his family should take a holiday in Europe, and knowing that D. L. Moody would preach in England in the fall, he decided to take his family there. However, he was delayed because of business, so he sent his family on ahead of him: his wife Anna, and his four daughters Tanetta, Maggie, Annie and Bessie.

On November 21, 1873, while crossing the Atlantic on the S.S. Ville Du Havre, the ship was struck by an iron sailing vessel and two hundred and twenty six people lost their lives, including all four of Spafford's daughters. Somehow his wife, Anna, survived. On arriving in England, she sent a telegram to Horatio with the words "Saved alone".

Spafford then himself took a ship to England, going past the place where his daughters had died. According to his daughter, Bertha Spafford, the hymn was written in 1873 in mid-Atlantic.

It Is Well with My Soul

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

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 has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

It is well, It is well,
with my soul, with my soul
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
It was nailed trough his cross, and I bear it no more,
Bless the Lord, bless the Lord, O my soul!

It is well, It is well,
with my soul, with my soul
It is well, it is well, with 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.

It is well, It is well
with my soul, with my soul
It is well, it is well, with my soul