“Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come …”

The verses to that hymn of solace have returned again and again to my thoughts over the past days. When news of the evil intent that swept down on the school in Nashville was made known, every parent and any family members surely felt the suffocating agony of the loss. Grief engulfed so many over such senseless murders. Life changed forever for so, so many people, and for those closest to these tragic losses, “buffet” was much too mild a description. These losses far outweighed what most would consider a “trial.”

Just days before the Nashville horror, storms brewed and joined forces that leveled the town of Rolling Fork and caused destruction and death along its path. The videos that continue to report the total loss of all possessions and twenty-plus lives cause us to shake our heads in disbelief. Where will these survivors go? What about their businesses, places of employment, churches, schools, medical clinics, means of transportation? There are no quick solutions, but what’s next is foremost in my thoughts. When everything is lost, including lives, what is the next step?

“When sorrows like sea billows roll …”

The writer had experienced such loss. He understood sorrow, loss, despair, and probably felt the drowning billows rolling over his tomorrows. But it’s the realization that the writer had learned in his years of knowing God that brought the only comfort his heart could grasp.

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

So in the midst of this fallen world penetrated with sin and destruction, we comfort one another with our faith and hope in Jesus. We encourage one another with these words, “O Lord, haste the day when our 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.”

Until THAT day, our Anchor holds as we anticipate Christ’s return, minister to others as Jesus would, and praise Him because of His redeeming blood on Calvary and His victory over death. Only “because He lives” can we face tomorrow and proclaim as we go, “It is well, it is well with my soul.”

Letters to Camille Anding may be sent to P.O. Box 551, Brookhaven, MS 39602.