Called to Create: A Biblical Invitation to Create, Innovate, and Risk

by Jordan Raynor

In 1873, the man and his wife decided to take their four daughters on an extended vacation to England, where their friend D. L. Moody was expected to be preaching in the fall. As the family was set to head to New York to board the ship to Europe, the man was forced to stay behind in Chicago to attend to a business matter. He encouraged his wife and daughters to go on without him, promising he would meet them in Europe as soon as possible. The five women made it safely to New York and boarded the Ville du Havre. As the ship was crossing the Atlantic, the women felt a sudden jolt. The Ville du Havre had been struck by an iron sailing vessel. Twelve minutes later, the ship sank to the bottom of the ocean, split in two. All four daughters died. Their mother was one of the few passengers to survive. Upon arriving in England, she telegrammed her husband in Chicago. “Saved alone,” she said. The husband left Chicago right away, sailing to England to meet his grieving wife. We don’t know much about his journey across the Atlantic, but I have to imagine the man spent his days alone, grieving his loss and questioning his God. I can see him sitting, staring out the window at the infinite sea, reading the biblical account of Job, a man like him who had been blessed with so much—wealth, success, family—only to see it all taken away from him in the blink of an eye. We don’t know much about what happened on that ship, but we do know this: as the ship crossed over the spot where the man’s ...