It Is Well

Every year since Briggs went to heaven, there has been a particular verse that has anchored my heart through that season of grief. This year, though, it hasn’t been a verse, it’s been a hymn.

“It is well with my soul.”

Those words have followed me everywhere. They’ve been on my mind when I wake up, in quiet moments throughout the day, and in the prayers I haven’t always known how to pray. So I decided to dig a little deeper.

I wanted to know where those familiar words came from, and what I found surprised me.

The hymn It Is Well with My Soul isn’t a direct quotation of one specific Bible verse, but it draws from several passages of Scripture. The phrase “It is well” is most closely associated with 2 Kings 4:26, where Elisha sends his servant to meet a woman whose son has just died.

“Run now, I pray thee, to meet her, and say unto her, Is it well with thee? is it well with thy husband? is it well with the child? And she answered, It is well.” (2 Kings 4:26)

At first glance, her response almost seems impossible. How could she say, “It is well,” when her child had just died?

As I continued studying, I learned that this Shunammite woman wasn’t denying her pain, she wasn’t pretending everything was okay, she was choosing to trust God before she ever saw His miracle. She answered in faith while her heart was still breaking.

That truth settled deeply into my own heart.

I also learned more about the man who wrote the hymn. Horatio Spafford penned It Is Well with My Soul after losing his four daughters in a shipwreck. Out of unimaginable sorrow came one of the greatest declarations of faith ever written.

“It is well with my soul.”

Not because life was well, or because loss didn’t hurt, but because Christ was still enough.

The refrain has become so much more than beautiful lyrics to me. It is a declaration that, regardless of outward circumstances, our souls can rest in the sovereignty of God and the hope we have in Christ.

This year has marked another new season of grief for me.

I’ve often said that every year after Briggs’ home-going has brought a different kind of grieving. The grief itself hasn’t become smaller; it has simply changed. Each year asks different questions and uncovers wounds I didn’t know were there.

If I’m being honest, this season has been one of the loneliest. I’ve had to grieve more than the loss of my son. I’ve had to accept that the world, even people I love deeply, has continued moving forward. Life has gone on, conversations have changed, the check-ins and visits become fewer, and people become busy.

Some have quietly drifted away altogether. Whether intentional or not, I’ve wrestled with the feeling that my grief has become too heavy for others to carry, that perhaps I’ve grieved “too long,” that maybe it’s time to move on.

But how do you move on from your child? Simply put, you don’t. You move forward, because life requires it, you learn to breathe again, you laugh again, you make memories again, but you never stop loving your child.

And because love doesn’t end, grief doesn’t either.

Grief isn’t something I need to fix or finish. It is the evidence that my so mattered, that he is loved, that he will always be part of our family, even if heaven is where he now lives.

As I’ve wrestled with loneliness this year, the Lord has continued bringing me back to those simple words: “It is well.”

Not because everything around me is well, not because every question has been answered, not because the ache has disappeared, but because my soul belongs to the One who has never left me.

I don’t know what this next season of grief will hold. I know there will still be tears, there will still be days that take my breath away, there will still be moments when I miss Briggs so deeply that words fail me.

But I also know this: God has been faithful through every season so far. He was faithful on the day we lost Briggs. He was faithful through the unbearable first year. He was faithful through every anniversary, birthday, holiday, and ordinary Tuesday, and He will be faithful in this season too.

So today, I choose to echo the words of a grieving mother in 2 Kings and a grieving father who wrote a hymn generations later. Not because my circumstances are easy, but because my Savior is unchanging.

It is well with my soul.

-Meshea Ingram