William Cowper once famously wrote:
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.
Samuel Jones Cassels, whose pastorates ranged from Norfolk, Virginia to Savannah, Georgia, was a 19th century Presbyterian minister and poet who was acquainted with coastal storms. The imagery of tempests figures often in his poetry. In fact, his gravestone in Midway, Georgia was badly damaged by a storm in 2012.
Like Cowper, he knew who was sovereign over the wind and the waves. In Providence he wrote:
Himself an ocean wide of purest bliss
…
O’er Ocean’s face He drives the storm along,
And at his bottom deep He counts his pearls;
…
The storm that raged He held in firmest grasp,
And to it gave its power, and course, and end.