The Song That Named Her

When Fanny Crosby was six weeks old, a doctor's error left her permanently blind. The world would have written her story in a single word: disabled. But Crosby refused that label. By the time she was eight, she had composed a short poem that revealed everything about how she understood herself: "O what a happy soul I am, although I cannot see; I am resolved that in this world, contented I will be."

That resolve carried her through nine decades and over eight thousand hymns. But it was one line from "Blessed Assurance," written in 1873, that became her clearest declaration of identity. "This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long." Not "this is my limitation." Not "this is my diagnosis." This is my story — and it belongs to the One who gave it to me.

When well-meaning friends expressed pity over her blindness, Crosby gave a response that silenced every room: "If I had been given a choice at birth, I would have chosen to be blind, because the first face I will ever see will be the face of my Savior."

The world will hand you an identity built on what you lack. El Roi, the God Who Sees, offers you one built on Whose you are. Fanny Crosby spent a lifetime singing that truth until the whole church learned the melody. The question for us is simple: whose voice are we letting name us?