Blind From Infancy, Yet She Sang: Fanny Crosby and the Gift of Trust

Blind From Infancy, Yet She Sang: Fanny Crosby and the Gift of Trust

Key verse: "Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." - Proverbs 3:5-6 (KJV)

Fanny Crosby was only six weeks old when an eye illness left her blind, and doctors later told her family nothing could be done. Her father died the same year. Raised by her mother and grandmother, she memorised chapters of the Bible every week as a child, and by 15 she knew the four Gospels and much of the Psalms by heart.

Here is the part that stops us. According to Wikipedia, she once said that if perfect sight were offered to her, she would not accept it, because she might not have sung hymns to God's praise if the sights around her had distracted her. She went on to write more than 8,000 hymns, including "Blessed Assurance" and "To God Be the Glory".

Her life is a picture of Proverbs 3:5-6. She did not lean on her own understanding of what she had lost. She acknowledged God, and He directed a path no one could have planned for her.

Prayer point: Lord, teach us to trust You in the very place we do not understand.

Over to you:
- Is there a loss or limitation in your life that God later turned into a song?
- Which Celestial hymn has carried you through a hard season, and why?

Sources: Wikipedia, "Fanny Crosby" (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Crosby); Bible text from the KJV.
Photo: Fanny Crosby, public domain, Wikimedia Commons