The Song She Wrote in the Dark

When Fanny Crosby was six weeks old, a doctor's mistake left her permanently blind. She would never see a sunset, never read a printed page, never recognize her own reflection. The world might have defined her by what she lacked. But Crosby refused that story.

By the time she died at ninety-four, she had written over eight thousand hymns. Among them was Blessed Assurance, which opens with one of the most confident declarations of identity ever sung in a church: "Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine! Heir of salvation, purchase of God, born of His Spirit, washed in His blood."

Notice the words she chose. Not "blind woman." Not "unfortunate soul." She called herself an heir. A purchase of the Almighty. Born of His Spirit. When a well-meaning minister once expressed pity over her blindness, Crosby replied that if she could have made the choice at birth, she would have chosen blindness still — because the first face she would ever see would be the face of her Savior.

The world will always try to name you by your wounds, your failures, your limitations. But El Roi — the God Who Sees — has already named you something else. Chosen. Beloved. His.

Your circumstances are not your identity. The One who made you gets to say who you are. And what He says sounds a lot like a hymn.