Contented I Will Be

When Fanny Crosby was six weeks old, a man claiming to be a doctor applied a hot mustard poultice to her infected eyes. The treatment scarred her corneas and destroyed her sight permanently. By every measure the world uses, her identity was sealed before she could hold her head up: she was the blind girl.

But at eight years old, Fanny wrote a poem that rewrote the story the world had written over her:

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, and I won't.

She went on to write over eight thousand hymns, among them Blessed Assurance, whose opening line became the anthem of her life: "Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine." Not blindness is mine. Not limitation is mine. Jesus is mine.

When someone once expressed pity for her condition, Crosby replied that had she been given a choice, she would have chosen blindness — because the first face she would ever see would be the face of her Savior.

The world will always try to name you by your wounds, your failures, your limitations. But the Almighty who knit you together in your mother's womb has already spoken your true name. His voice is louder than every label the world has ever pressed upon you.