(This article contains potentially disturbing discussions of suicide and mentions of sexual abuse.)
“God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm…Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head.Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flow’r…”
You may be familiar with this well-worn hymn, which has been sung by generations of Christians, and has been a source of peace for believers as they face life’s crosses. But you may not know, that the same man who penned these words in 1773, wrote another poem in 1799, just before the end of his life, which bears a far different tone:
“Obscurest night involv'd the sky,
Th' Atlantic billows roar'd,
When such a destin'd wretch as I,
Wash'd headlong from on board,
Of friends, of hope, of all bereft,
His floating home forever left…
At length, his transient respite past,
His comrades, who before
Had heard his voice in ev'ry blast,
Could catch the sound no more.
For then, by toil subdued, he drank
The stifling wave, and then he sank….
I therefore purpose not, or dream,
Descanting on his fate,
To give the melancholy theme
A more enduring date:
But misery still delights to trace
Its semblance in another's case.
No voice divine the storm allay'd,
No light propitious shone;
When, snatch'd from all effectual aid,
We perish'd, each alone:
But I beneath a rougher sea,
And whelm'd in deeper gulfs than he.”
How is it that the same man could claim that the “clouds ye so much dread” are actually full of God’s mercy, and yet, at the end of his life, say “We perish’d each alone”?
Both of these poems, “God Moves in a Mysterious Way,” and “The Castaway,” were written by William Cowper, one of the most famous hymn writers of the 18th century. Born in London in 1731, Cowper struggled with deep depression his entire life. His mother passed away when he was six, and his father, in his grief, grew distant and absent.
At age ten, Cowper was sent away to a boarding school where he was severely bullied, and–according to many scholars, likely sexually abused. After graduating boarding school, Cowper, with his father’s urging, pursued a career as a lawyer, but he found no satisfaction in it. He fell in love with his cousin Theodora, but her father forced them to cut off their engagement because he didn’t deem Cowper a fit husband for her. As he prepared for a public examination in order to become a clerk in the House of Lords, Cowper fell into a deep depression, wrought by shame and self-doubt.
He attempted suicide several times, but again and again, something seemed to be stopping him. He tried to stab himself in the chest with a pen knife, but the blade broke. He tried to hang himself from his bed frame, but the frame broke. He managed to hang himself from his doorframe, but just as he was losing consciousness, the rope broke. He felt himself a coward, unable even to kill himself. The following morning, according to theologian and writer Marc Sims, Cowper “felt for himself a contempt not to be expressed or imagined…he felt as if he had offended God so deeply that his guilt could never be forgiven, and his whole heart was filled with tumultuous pangs of despair.”
But Cowper found God –or rather God found him– when his father admitted him to an insane asylum that was run by a Christian doctor, Nathaniel Cotton. Cotton ministered to Cowper, and under his care, Cowper picked up a Bible and read the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. In this story, he wrote, “I saw so much benevolence, mercy, goodness, and sympathy with miserable men, in our Saviour’s conduct, that I almost shed tears upon the relation; little thinking that it was an exact type of the mercy which Jesus was on the point of extending towards myself. I sighed, and said, ‘Oh, that I had not rejected so good a Redeemer, that I had not forfeited all his favours.’ Thus was my heart softened, though not yet enlightened.”
Although confronted with the goodness and beauty of God, Cowper could not imagine that this grace could extend to him. In his mind, he was a worm in the eyes of God–unworthy of love and salvation, irredeemable. Then he encountered the gospel in Romans 3. “Immediately I received the strength to believe it, and the full beams of the Sun of Righteousness shone upon me. I saw the sufficiency of the atonement He had made, my pardon sealed in His blood, and all the fullness and completeness of His justification. In a moment I believed, and received the gospel…my eyes filled with tears, and my voice choked with transport; I could only look up to heaven in silent fear, overwhelmed with love and wonder,” he wrote.
After his asylum stay, Cowper began attending the church pastored by John Newton, the former slave trader who repented and devoted his life to ministry. Newton encouraged Cowper to join him in compiling a hymnal for their congregation. Cowper wrote 68 hymns, including “God Moves in a Mysterious Way,” “O For a Closer Walk with God,” and “There is a Fountain Filled with Blood.”.
But despite his faith, Cowper continued to struggle with depression for the rest of his life and attempted suicide several more times. Even as he clung to the truth of the gospel, he found himself doubting his own salvation. And in his final poem, “The Castaway,” written before his death in 1800, Cowper wrote only of despair. He was a castaway drifting out to sea, hopeless and lost.
Cowper’s story reminds us us that it is okay to struggle with depression, despair, and even suicide as a Christian — because even our deepest struggles cannot drive us from God. It is the object of our faith, and not the strength of our faith, that truly matters. Yes, a strong faith ought to be cultivated. Yes, as we are sanctified, our faith grows. But ultimately, it is not our own faith that saves us - it is the person in whom we put our faith: the ever-faithful Triune God.
The Jesus that Cowper discovered in John 11 was the Man of Sorrows. It’s in John 11 that we find the shortest verse in the English Bible, “Jesus wept.” Yet in these simple words, we see so much of the character of Christ and what he came to do. He looked upon the tomb of his friend and he wept. Fully God and fully man, he wept at the suffering and death that were a result of the curse he would bear for us. And it is he, the Resurrected One, who holds the keys to death now and will destroy it forever.
He, our sympathetic Great High Priest, knows our suffering and our pain. He had the power to save Cowper, though Cowper struggled to see this as true, and he has the power to save us. And those whom God has chosen cannot slip from his grasp. We belong to him. Even if we fail to see it, and all seems despair–he holds us fast.
The theologian Sinclair Ferguson quotes Cowper asking, “Where is the blessedness I knew when I first saw the Lord? Where is the soul-refreshing view of Jesus and his word?” These questions are similar to many asked in Scripture–by Habakkuk, by Job, by David, by Jeremiah, by Solomon, by Paul, and by countless others. Often we ourselves ask these questions. Our view of Jesus, like Cowper’s, fades at times. But there is room to wrestle, and to ask these questions, because even when we lose sight of our Savior, he does not lose sight of us. This blessedness, even unrecognized, is still ours. Now, as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13, we see through a glass darkly–our vision tainted by our own brokenness and sin–but someday, we will see Christ face to face. We shall behold the face of God, and our souls will be truly refreshed at last.