This is one of my favorite hymns. If you don’t know the story behind it, you can click here to read where this song originated. It’s touching and devastating. We’ve all experienced times in our life where terrible things happen, and we need the gift of comfort. This song has been that to me. It has comforted me when I felt lost, hurt, and alone. It has helped me through waves of depression.
During one particular season of lows, I pulled out one of my old arrangements of it to play over and over, but it wasn’t quite doing it for me. I felt frustrated that this song, my old friend, was no longer giving me strength. I looked at the lyrics and thought they weren’t very relatable, with their archaic language. So I sat down and began to write my own.
I wrote dozens and dozens of verses, one after another. It was a new experience for me; having the basic melodic outline and only working on lyrics. The spirit of creativity also paid me a special visit during this one. Some verses flowed so quickly, my hand couldn’t write fast enough to catch it all as the ideas came. Some of the verses actually came backwards; starting with the last line of the stanza, and then finishing it in reverse. Those experiences remind me that the music isn’t me. It isn’t my ideas, my brain coming up with this. It comes from somewhere bigger, that passes my understanding.
I’m grateful for this one. It still comforts me when I am going through a low point.
LYRICS: I take this burden and lay it at Your feet These thoughts and these lies, please defeat Your fountain of grace Will shine on my face It is well, it is well with my soul When pain overwhelms me, I plead for your peace I cry out for love and you speak You promise to me No more will I bleed All will see, You are God, You are King My heart feels so broken, my hope seems so small The rain never ceases to fall I know shame will die In Your Name, I will rise Oh Hallelu, I’m alive in You It is well With my soul It is well, it is well with my soul It is well, it is well God, you make it well with my soul