The Blind Woman Who Saw Purpose Clearly

When Fanny Crosby was six weeks old, a man posing as a doctor applied a burning poultice to her infected eyes. The treatment left her permanently blind. By any measure, her life had been derailed before it even began.

Yet Crosby went on to write more than eight thousand hymns, including Blessed Assurance, To God Be the Glory, and Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior. Her words have been sung by millions of believers across every continent and every denomination for over a century.

What strikes me most is something she said late in life. She told a reporter that if she could have her sight restored, she would refuse it. "When I get to heaven," she said, "the first face that shall ever gladden my sight will be that of my Savior." She believed her blindness had removed distractions and sharpened her inner vision for the work the Almighty had prepared for her.

Fanny Crosby did not succeed in spite of her limitation. She fulfilled her purpose through it.

We spend so much energy asking God to remove the very thing He may be using to shape us. The detour we resent, the thorn we beg Him to extract — sometimes that is the instrument He has chosen to tune our lives to His frequency.

El Roi, the God Who Sees, often does His clearest work in us when our own vision fails.