It Is Well With My Soul

Avalon performs Horatio Spafford's 1873 hymn, written after he lost his four daughters at sea, and its refrain has always carried more weight because of that context — 'whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, it is well, it is well, with my soul' isn't a claim made from comfortable circumstances. 'Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come' names real, ongoing opposition rather than pretending the peace being described comes easily.

'My sin, not in part but the whole, is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more' echoes Colossians 2:14's image of a debt 'nailed to the cross,' and the final verse turns from present endurance to future hope: 'the trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend' reaches directly for 1 Thessalonians 4:16's description of Christ's return, 'with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with God's trumpet.' The hymn's whole shape moves from grief endured in the present to a specific, named future event — the refrain doesn't change across that shift, but what it's resting on does.