The Hymn Writer Who Chose Her Own Name

Fanny Crosby lost her sight at six weeks old when a man posing as a doctor applied a mustard poultice to her inflamed eyes. The world handed her an identity before she could walk: the blind girl.

She refused it.

At eight years old, she wrote her first poem: "Oh, what a happy soul I am, although I cannot see. I am resolved that in this world, contented I will be." That was not denial. That was a child who already knew that what others saw when they looked at her was not the truest thing about her.

Fanny Crosby went on to write over eight thousand hymns, including Blessed Assurance, To God Be the Glory, and Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior. When a well-meaning minister told her it was "a great pity that the Master did not give you sight," she answered without hesitation: "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 writes labels in pencil. The Almighty writes your name in permanent ink.

We live surrounded by voices eager to tell us who we are — our failures, our diagnoses, our worst chapters. But the God who formed you has already spoken: "I have called you by name; you are Mine" (Isaiah 43:1).

Your deepest identity is not what you have lost. It is Whose you are.