Fanny Crosby

Fanny Crosby

Bible Blast: Read Ephesians 5:15-20

Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 5:19-20 (NIV)

Fanny Crosby was born in 1820. When she was six weeks old, she developed a cold in her eyes. The doctor who treated her didn’t know what he was doing. He treated Fanny by placing hot packs of some sort on her eyes. That made the inflammation in her eyes get worse and caused her to become completely blind.

In spite of her blindness, Fanny was an incredibly happy kid. She still jumped over fences and climbed trees, just like any other kid. It was as if her blindness never bothered her.

Fanny Crosby had a gift for poetry. When she was only eight years old she wrote this:

Oh! what a happy soul I am!

Although I cannot see,

I am resolved that in this world

Contented I will be.

How many blessings I enjoy

That other people don’t!

To weep and sigh because I’m blind

I cannot nor I won’t.

She eventually got teamed up with people who wrote music, and her poems became songs called “hymns.” In case you don’t attend a church that sings hymns, they are worship songs that usually have a few verses and a chorus. By the time Fanny died in 1915, she had written about eight thousand hymns and poems! A couple of her most famous hymns are “Blessed Assurance” and “To God Be the Glory.”

I think if I were unable to see, I would jump at any chance to get my sight back, but Fanny didn’t feel that way at all. She said, “If I had a choice, I would still choose to remain blind . . . for when I die, the first face I will ever see will be the face of my blessed Saviour.”

Girl Gab: Do you feel like some of the things you see around you distract you from praising Jesus? Pray with your mom today that your eyes would always focus on Jesus more than anything else.