Monday, January 23, 2017

“CONTINUING TO DISCERN THE WILL OF GOD”                                                                            
     She was only six weeks old when she was mistakingly mistreated for a minor eye inflammation that left her blind the rest of her life.  Without any eyesight, you and I might have grown up bitter, but not her.  At the age of eight, she wrote the following 2 stanza poem:
Oh, what a happy child I am,              How many blessings I enjoy
Although I cannot see!                         That other people don’t!
I am resolved that in this world          So weep or sigh because I’m blind
Contented I will be.                              I cannot, or I won’t!

     Frances Jane Crosby, better known as Fanny Crosby, wrote more than eight thousand songs in her almost 95 years!  Donald P. Hustad, an authority on hymnology, called Fanny Crosby, “the most prolific and significant writer of gospel songs in American history.”  

     Fanny’s father died when she was very young, but like Timothy in the Bible, she was greatly influenced by her mother and grandmother. By the time Fanny was ten years old, it is recorded that she could recite the first four books of the Old Testament and the four Gospels!  She also could recite numerous poems from memory.

     As far as hymn writing, Fanny said, “I could not have written thousands of hymns if I had been hindered by the distractions of seeing all the interesting and beautiful objects that would have been presented to my notice.... and....  I never undertake a hymn without first asking the good Lord to be my inspiration in the work that I am about to do.”  

     A few of Fanny’s hymns many of us have sung for years include: “To God Be the Glory,” “Blessed Assurance,” “Praise Him! Praise Him!,” “Redeemed,” “Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross,” “Rescue the Perishing,” “All the Way My Savior Leads Me,” and many, many more.  Plus, hundreds of Fanny Crosby’s poems are still in their files at the Hope Publishing Company waiting to be set to music!

     In her autobiography, “Fanny Crosby’s Life Story,” Fanny wrote the following: “It seemed intended by the blessed Providence of God that I should be blind all my life, and I thank Him for the dispensation.... If I could meet him (the doctor who destroyed her sight) now I would say, ‘Thank you, thank you’ -- over and over again -- for making me blind.”                 

                                                               God is good all the time.  Mr. Steve

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