“Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again.” Psalm 71:20
What do James Apple, Florence Booth, Jenny Garnet, Annie James, Maude Marion, Sam Martin, and Sally Smith have in common? They are all the same person! Frances Jane Crosby is one of the most amazing Christian women of modern times. Her friends called her Fanny. Although blind, Fanny Crosby is credited with writing nearly 10,000 hymns.
Fanny Crosby was born in New York, in 1820. She suffered a severe eye infection when only two months old. Unfortunately, she was treated by a doctor who applied hot mustard poultices to her eyes. Eventually she overcame her illness, but she was left blind for life. A few months later her father died, leaving her mother and grandmother to care for her. These two women worked tirelessly with Fanny, teaching her a great love for poetry and the Bible. At age eight Fanny wrote, “Oh, what a happy soul I am, how many blessings I enjoy though I cannot see! I am resolved that in this world contented I will be. I cannot, and I won’t weep because I am blind!”
Fanny zealously studied her Bible, often memorizing several chapters a week. After her 15th birthday, she was accepted at the New York Institute for the Blind. This would be her home as student and teacher for 23 years. She personally recited poetry to every president in her lifetime.
At age 23 she was invited as the first woman to address the Congress of the United States. In 1858 she married Alexander van Alstine, a blind musician. They had one child who died in infancy. After that death Annie began writing Christian gospel songs. Her simple stanzas were welcomed by evangelists who wanted easy and catchy songs for crowds to sing. Although under contract to write three hymns a week, it wasn’t unusual for her to write six or seven a day, receiving a payment of a dollar or two per hymn. Musicians hurried to put her lyrics to melody. Her music became so popular that all the new gospel songbooks were filled with songs by Fanny. Eventually she began using over 75 fake names to show a fair mix of hymn writers in publications. Among her gems are “To God Be the Glory,” “Blessed Assurance,” and “Safe in the Arms of Jesus.”
Fanny once said of her blindness, “If at birth I could have made one request, it would have been that I was born blind, because when I get to heaven, the first face I will see will be that of my Savior.” Fanny died in 1915, at age 94. Her last words were from a hymn she was working on, “You will reach the riverbank, some sweet day, bye and bye.”
Let me learn of Jesus, He is kind to me;
Once He died to save me, nailed upon the tree.
(By Fanny Crosby)
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