FACE TO FACE

In the month of May, in the year 1820, a mother took her six-month old child to the doctor. It seemed she had a minor eye infection that needed to be treated. The doctor was careless in his treatment, and the precious little girl went blind. To compound the difficulty, throughout her life she constantly battled health problems. How could a blind woman with fragile health during the 1800’s accomplish anything for God?

It seems that for one person, being blind meant that she could see and understand a great deal about God. Little Fanny Crosby turned out to be an amazing child in several ways. She held no bitterness about her blindness. At the age of eight she wrote her first poem:

Oh, what a happy child I am,
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!
So weep or sigh because I’m blind,
I cannot, nor I won’t!

The biggest influences in Fanny’s life were her grandmother, her mother, and a godly neighbor. With these folks working with her, by the time she was ten years old she could recite the first four books of the Old Testament, the four Gospels and a very large number of poems. When she was fifteen she began formal education in New York City. She quickly became an excellent student in every subject except mathematics.

She published her first book of poems at the age of twenty-four, including her first hymn. Although her family and one of her teachers were great spiritual influences, Fanny herself did not receive the assurance of her salvation until she was thirty years old.

While attending revival meetings at the Broadway Tabernacle Methodist Church in New York, she had gone to the altar on two different evenings, without settling the matter. Finally, while the people were singing: "Alas, and Did My Saviour Bleed?" God showed her the solution to her need.

She later said: " My very soul was flooded with celestial light. For the first time I realized that I had been trying to hold the world in one hand and the Lord in the other."

Fanny found great joy in knowing the Lord Jesus Christ had forgiven her and given her abundant new life. Eight years later she married a gifted musician who, like her, had been a student and an instructor at the blind school.

In 1864 she began to write gospel songs, producing over eight thousand songs during the next fifty-one years. Many of these songs are still popular today, such as: "To God Be the Glory," "Blessed Assurance," "Praise Him! Praise Him!," "Redeemed," "Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross," "Rescue the Perishing," and "All the Way My Saviour Leads Me."

Often she mentioned sight in her songs. She had a great faith, and sweet assurance that heaven was her home. In her song: "Saved by Grace," she writes:

Some day the silver cord will break,
And I no more as now shall sing;
But oh, the joy when I shall wake
Within the palace of the King!
And I shall see Him face to face,
And tell the story – Saved by grace.
And I shall see Him face to face,
And tell the story – Saved by grace.