The Blind Woman Who Saw Herself Clearly

When Fanny Crosby was six weeks old, a doctor's malpractice left her permanently blind. The world would have written her story in a single word: disabled. But at eight years old, she penned a poem that revealed how she understood herself: "O what a happy soul I am, although I cannot see; I am resolved that in this world, contented I will be."

Crosby refused to let her condition become her identity. She went on to write over eight thousand hymns, but none captured her self-understanding better than "Blessed Assurance," composed in 1873. Notice the first three words: "Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine." Not "Blind woman, life is hard." Not "Damaged goods, making do." She rooted her identity not in what she lacked but in Whose she was.

Late in life, someone expressed sympathy for her blindness. Her response has echoed through the centuries: "If I had been given a choice at birth, I would have chosen to be blind, for when I get to heaven, the first face I will see will be the face of my Savior."

The world is relentless in handing us labels — broken, overlooked, not enough. But the God who spoke light into darkness speaks a different name over each of us. As the Almighty declared through Isaiah, "I have called you by name; you are Mine."

Your deepest identity is never what happened to you. It is who claimed you.