The Hymn Writer Who Never Saw a Sunset

Fanny Crosby lost her sight at six weeks old when a man posing as a doctor applied hot poultices to her infected eyes. She would never see a sunrise, never read a page of scripture with her own eyes, never watch the faces of the congregations who sang her words.

She wrote over eight thousand hymns.

Think about that number. Eight thousand. Blessed Assurance. To God Be the Glory. Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior. Song after song poured out of a woman who lived in darkness for ninety-four years. Publishers made her use pen names — over two hundred of them — because no hymnal wanted to admit how many of its pages belonged to one blind woman.

When someone once expressed pity for her blindness, Crosby responded with words that still carry weight: "If I had been given a choice, I would have chosen to be born blind, because when I get to heaven, the first face I will ever see will be the face of my Savior."

That is perseverance — not grim endurance, but a joy so deep it reframes the hardship entirely. She didn't write hymns in spite of her darkness. She wrote them through it, finding in the blindness a closeness to the Almighty that sighted people sometimes miss.

Whatever you cannot see right now — the resolution, the healing, the way forward — keep singing. The God who gave Fanny Crosby eight thousand songs has not run out of music for your life.