The hymn began just as it always does.
“When peace like a river attendeth my way … .”
The congregation's voices swelled, the organ warmed the sanctuary, and something familiar rose up like the tide. I’ve sung this song dozens of times, maybe more. It’s one of the great hymns of the faith, one I love deeply. The kind of song that feels like meeting an old friend in the pew beside you. Comforting melody. Steady truth.
But this time, something in me stalled.
As the chorus came, “It is well, it is well with my soul,” I couldn’t bring myself to join in. My lips stayed still. The words just didn’t fit that Sunday. My body tried to sing, but my soul could not utter the words.
And I didn’t want to fake it.
I stood among a sea of faithful voices, all proclaiming a deep, anchored peace. But I couldn’t echo it. Not out of rebellion. Not from bitterness. But because, at that moment, it would have felt dishonest. I let the silence rise in me instead.
I stood in the sanctuary, the music moving all around me, and I asked, “Why? Why can’t I sing? Am I doubting God? Am I just tired? Or is this a more honest kind of faith than I usually let myself live out loud?”
It wasn’t just one thing weighing on me. There were many—a slow, quiet stacking of burdens. Some were close to home. Relationships that are frayed and needing repair. A loved one facing terrifying health news. A workload that had begun to stretch me paper-thin. Our church, stuck in a seemingly endless pastoral search, and the waiting had turned from hopeful to heavy. And then there was the wider world, filled with wars, tragedies, divisions, and devastations echoing in every headline, inescapable every time I turned on any form of media.
Individually, perhaps I could bear each one. Yet together, they wore down the peace in me.
So no, that Sunday, it was not well with my soul.
For the first time in a long time, I allowed myself to admit it. Not just in the quiet corners of prayer, but right there, standing in the pews. I didn’t sing. I couldn’t. But I stayed. I let the words move around me, even if they couldn’t come from me.
What surprised me in that stillness was that I didn’t feel ashamed. I didn’t feel weak or faithless or fraudulent. I felt invited. Not to perform. Not to push through. But to be still. To let God meet me right where I was, not where I pretended to be.
I thought of the Psalms, Psalm 42 in particular. “Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him.” Those three words, I will yet, have become something of a lifeline. They don’t deny sorrow. They name it. But they also speak to something beyond the moment. A defiant hope. A faith that whispers from the valley rather than the mountaintop. A faith that doesn’t need to shout, only to hold on.
Later that week, I reread the story behind the hymn. Horatio Spafford wrote “It Is Well with My Soul” after losing his four daughters in a shipwreck. He wrote it from the depths of grief. Suddenly the song sounded different to me. It wasn’t a hymn of triumph. It was a hymn of survival, a lifeline tossed from suffering, anchored in Christ alone.
My silence in that sanctuary wasn’t a failure. It was worship in a different key—a quieter key. I couldn’t sing, but I was still there. Still listening. Still reaching. I believe that counted. In fact, I believe God heard it loud and clear.
One of the quiet mercies of the church is that we never worship alone. That Sunday, the voices of others carried what I could not. They sang the chorus for me. And someday, when someone else can’t bring themselves to believe or sing, I will carry it for them. That is what it means to be the body of Christ. We do not all have to be strong at the same time. Sometimes, just showing up is enough.
Faith doesn’t always sound like a mighty roar. Sometimes it sounds like a sigh. Sometimes it sounds like silence. Sometimes it’s just standing still with open hands and a weary heart, trusting that the words will one day return.
They will. Not because of who I am, but because of who God is. He is faithful, even when I falter. He is steady, even when I shake. And he never once asks me to pretend.
So if next Sunday comes and I still can’t sing, I will still come. I will still listen. I will still hope. Because even if it’s not well with my soul, I know the One who speaks peace over the storm.
And that, even in silence, is enough.