I remember hearing Joni Earekson Tada speak at a conference (a Christian author and speaker who was paralyzed from the neck down at 17 during a diving accident). She was laden with such a pure joy there wasn’t a dry eye in the room. My grandmother (now with Jesus) was sitting next to me, and impromptu turned to me and said, “It’s hard to complain about one’s life after hearing Joni speak.” God has a way of using our brokenness to better display His glory. Such was also the case with the author of our next hymn, Fanny Crosby.
Called by many ‘America’s most prolific hymn writer’, Fanny Crosby’s work as a writer and as a believer truly stands out. She was born in 1820, and at six weeks lost her eyesight due to the rash decisions of a poorly trained doctor applying a mustard plaster to her eyes. Yet, despite the loss of her sight, even from a young age, Fanny embodied what it was to be ‘content’. At nine years old, she composed the following poem,
‘O what a happy soul am I, although I cannot see,
I am resolved that in this world contented I will be.
How many blessings I enjoy that other people don’t.
To weep and sigh because I’m blind, I cannot, and I won’t.’
This relentless source of contentedness permeated her work spanning over ninety years, writing more than 8,000 Gospel songs and hymns, over 1,000 nonreligious songs, four books of poetry, and two autobiographies. Clearly, she did not let her impairment tempt her into idleness (even going down the rabbit hole of her accomplishments caused me to feel a deep level of professional inadequacy. Would that I was half as productive).
She entered the New York Institute for the Blind at 15 years old and ended up teaching there afterwards for over a decade. During that time, she met a fellow student, a blind musician named Alexander Van Alstyne, who also later became a member of the faculty with her. During her life she rose to prominence due to her work and work ethic, even addressing a joint session of Congress to discuss and advocate for further education for the blind. She passed away in 1915, having become friends with a host of United States presidents (Martin Van Buren, John Tyler, James Polk, and Grover Cleveland).
Our hymn of adoration for Sunday, July 13th, was first published in 1873 in the monthly magazine, Guide to Holiness. It was later picked up and used repeatedly by D.L. Moody and Ira Sankey during their revivals in Great Britian and the United States, bringing the piece to prominence as a congregational hymn. And yet, for all the formal history behind this hymn, the story of its initial composing embodies the hopeful, contended spirit of Fanny Crosby.
In 1873, her friend Pheobe Knapp played a tune at the piano. Upon completion of the tune, she turned to Fanny and asked, “What does that melody say to you?” Fanny knelt in prayer for a few moments, then rose and declared, “It says, ‘Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!’” Would that this will be our disposition when we sing this song, that our gaze would be heavenward as the author’s gaze – though blind in the earthly sense – was. As the psalmist writes in Psalm 27:4,
‘One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after:
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
To gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple.’
Is that truly our prayer? Is our longing for heaven enough to outweigh the troubles and distractions we face on earth? And are we able to long for this day when all wrongs shall be righted and there will be more than ‘echoes of mercy’ or mere ‘whispers of love’ without despairing of our days ‘til we see our King face to face? Fanny’s vision may have been damaged, but her vision of the world to come and her hope in the One who makes the sightless eye to see was steadfast and bursting with hope, causing her to infuse that joy into all of her earthly days.
May the Lord grant to us, people of God, heirs of salvation, purchased by the blood of Christ - His peace that passes all understanding as we wait, as we pray ‘hasten the day’ of our Lord’s return. As we watch and wait, ‘looking above’, may His Spirit soften our hearts to be ‘filled with His goodness, lost in His love’, even as we gather together to sing this beloved hymn,
‘Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
O what a foretaste of glory divine
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.
Perfect submission, perfect delight,
visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels descending, bring from above
echoes of mercy, whispers of love.
Perfect submission, all is at rest,
I in my Savior am happy and blest;
Watching and waiting, looking above,
filled with his goodness, lost in his love.
This is my story, this is my song,
praising my Savior all the day long!’
Amen
