The Hymn Writer Who Never Saw the Page

When Fanny Crosby was six weeks old, a doctor's mistake left her permanently blind. She would never see a sunset, never read a page of Scripture with her own eyes, never watch a congregation sing. Yet over the course of her ninety-four years, she wrote more than eight thousand hymns — among them Blessed Assurance, To God Be the Glory, and Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior.

What strikes me most about Crosby is not her productivity but her posture. When a well-meaning minister once expressed sympathy for her blindness, she responded, "If I had been able to make one request of my Creator, it would have been that I should be born blind, because when I get to heaven, the first face that shall ever gladden my sight will be that of my Savior."

That is not denial. That is trust so deep it reframes loss as gift.

Crosby could not see the notes on the page, could not see the faces of those who wept as her hymns were sung. But she could see something the rest of us strain to glimpse — that the God who holds tomorrow is worthy of our confidence today.

When life takes something precious from us — health, security, a future we had planned — we face the same choice Fanny Crosby faced every morning. Will we curse the darkness, or will we sing? Trust does not require sight. It requires a Savior worth singing to, even when we cannot see where He is leading.