Eight Thousand Songs in the Dark

Fanny Crosby was six weeks old when a country doctor's mistake destroyed her eyesight forever. She never saw a sunrise, never read a page of Scripture with her own eyes, never glimpsed the faces of the people she loved.

And yet, over her ninety-four years, she wrote more than eight thousand hymns — including Blessed Assurance, To God Be the Glory, and Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior. She penned words of radiant confidence in a God she had never seen with physical eyes.

What strikes me most is something she once 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 Savior."

Think about that. She didn't simply endure her blindness. She trusted the Almighty so completely that she called it a gift. She believed God had a purpose in her darkness — and that purpose produced songs that have carried millions of believers through their own dark nights.

Trust doesn't require seeing the whole picture. Fanny Crosby couldn't see anything at all, and she wrote the soundtrack of the faith. She trusted not because she had evidence laid out before her, but because she knew the character of the One who held her.

If you're in a season where you can't see what God is doing, take heart. Some of the most beautiful music ever written came from someone who never saw a single note on the page.