It Is Well With My Soul

So often, it is not well with my soul. The world we inhabit is broken, marred by sin. Just this Tuesday, I walked into a prison and the first words I heard were: “You know that Ethan kid of yours? He tried to kill himself twice this weekend. Slashed his wrists and neck and then pulled out the stitches.”

I had to stand and absorb this grave news without flinching. I had no time to process. I was there to teach. I had to go on.

Ethan is by no means a good student. I couldn’t even get him to come to class for the first six months. He sticks out like a sore thumb. For starters, he’s gay, which makes him an obvious outcast inside prison. The other students treat him with scorn and contempt because he’s our smartest student and knows it and sometimes acts like it. He’s wickedly sarcastic to the point of being mean. He once broke a cardinal rule of prison by revealing another student’s crime, declaring that he was better than the other because he didn’t steal. His uniform is tattered and disgusting, likely because he’s afraid to go to the showers and risk being assaulted. He wears these giant, nerdy glasses that are thick and born out of the sixties. His handwriting is horridly poor just like mine, but when he does actually turn in an assignment, it’s actually pretty decent. He recently wrote about opening the door to his heart to Jesus, a subject I did not think he would dare approach considering he’s Jewish. Slowly, I began to win his trust. We were making real progress, his grades were trending upward, he was more enthusiastic and eager to learn  and less depressed. I thought we were on the cusp of a breakthrough.

Then without warning one Sunday evening, all our progress came crashing down. I figured he had a lengthy prison sentence, maybe life without parole, and had lost all hope. But I learned he is going to be released in 2027, just three years from now. How could someone with an approaching release date have lost hope like this? How could someone want their obituary to read that they died in prison? I was heartbroken in the truest sense of the word and I don’t think I heard a single word anyone said to me all Tuesday. Driving home, I felt empty and hollow. It was all just so screwed up, how casually I had been told of his suicide attempts, how little everyone else cared. Here was a child who’d done something unfathomably painful, and no one outside of those in the prison would likely ever know. I ached for this young man’s pain.

Stories like Ethan’s are not out of the ordinary for us. Nearly every week we’re told of some unspeakable tragedy, another suicide, another act of violence.

So yeah, sometimes it is not well with my soul. And in those moments, I want to weep and cry.

I’ve carried the news of Ethan with me all week, not eager to talk or laugh. On Sunday, I walked into my church, Trinity Anglican, feeling hollow. Then the remarkable happened.

For the first two songs, I stood silently, debating whether or not I should walk out. Then Marty, the worship leader, pivoted. He asked the piano to join him in the key of C and then apologized to the tech team for making a change to the normal order. Marty sang acoustically, “It is well with my soul”.

“It is well with my soul,” he sang.

“It is well with my soul,” I cried.

God’s presence filled my very soul. God isn’t here to take away our pain and suffering, rather, God is here to fill those broken spaces with His presence.

Sorrows like sea billows roll. Trials come. But our sin is nailed to the cross and we bear it no more.

The trump WILL resound and the Lord WILL descend. And what a day that will be, friends!

I will be allowed to visit with Ethan Tuesday when I return to the prison. He’ll likely be in an isolation cell, wrapped in a smock and bound by his hands and feet so he can no longer harm himself. I do not know the words that God will give me to say to him, but I know when I see him, God will give me the words to say, because it is well with my soul.

There are so many hurting people in prison and we want to bear all their pain, to make everything okay, no matter the personal cost. But we cannot fill their brokenness; only Jesus can. So, we turn it over to the only one who died on the cross for broken people like Ethan and you and me.

Please pray for Ethan.

God bless.

Spencer