The Hymn Writer Who Chose Her Blindness

Fanny Crosby lost her sight at six weeks old when a mustard poultice, applied by an incompetent doctor, destroyed her vision permanently. She would never see a sunrise, never read a printed page, never watch the faces of those she loved. By every measure, she had reason to rage against the hand she'd been dealt.

Instead, she wrote hymns. Over eight thousand of them. "Blessed Assurance," "To God Be the Glory," "Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior" — songs that have carried congregations through wars, funerals, and dark nights of the soul for more than a century.

What stuns me is something Crosby said late in life. When asked about her blindness, she replied, "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."

That is not optimism. That is not positive thinking. That is faith — the kind the writer of Hebrews described as "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Fanny Crosby took those words literally. She lived her entire life without sight, yet she saw further than most of us ever will.

Faith does not require that God remove our hardships. Faith is the ability to sing in the dark because you trust the One who holds the morning. Fanny Crosby could not see the light, but she spent her whole life pointing others toward it.