The Blind Woman Who Wrote Eight Thousand Songs

Fanny Crosby was six weeks old when a careless medical treatment destroyed her sight. She would never see a sunrise, never read a page of sheet music, never watch the faces of the congregations that would one day sing her words. By every measure the world uses, her story should have ended before it began.

Instead, she wrote more than eight thousand hymns across nearly nine decades of life. "Blessed Assurance." "To God Be the Glory." "Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior." Songs that have carried millions of believers through grief, doubt, and weariness. When asked about her blindness, Crosby said something that still stops me cold: "It seemed intended by the blessed providence of God that I should be blind all my life, and I thank Him for the dispensation. If I could meet the doctor who took away my sight, I would thank him too, because through losing my sight I gained my spiritual vision."

She did not persevere despite her suffering. She persevered through it, finding in it a strange and holy gift.

The apostle Paul understood this arithmetic of grace. "We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair" (2 Corinthians 4:8). The Almighty does not always remove the obstacle. Sometimes He uses the obstacle to tune the instrument.

Whatever darkness you are walking through today, keep singing. The song is not finished yet.