The Blind Woman Who Saw the Light

Fanny Crosby lost her sight at six weeks old due to a doctor's error. She never saw a sunrise, never watched light break through storm clouds, never glimpsed the face of someone she loved. Yet this woman wrote over eight thousand hymns, and nearly all of them overflow with imagery of light, radiance, and the boundless love of God.

When asked if she resented her blindness, Crosby replied that it was the best thing that ever happened to her. "When I get to heaven," she said, "the first face that shall ever gladden my sight will be that of my Savior."

She understood something the psalmist knew centuries before her. "In Your light we see light," David wrote. The deepest seeing has never required functioning eyes. It requires a heart awakened to the steadfast love of the Almighty — a love the psalmist says stretches to the heavens, a faithfulness that reaches to the clouds.

Fanny Crosby drank daily from what Psalm 36 calls "the river of Your delights." She took refuge under the shadow of the Most High's wings and found there an abundance no darkness could diminish. Her blindness did not limit her vision — it clarified it. She saw, with stunning precision, what sighted people so often miss: that God Himself is the fountain of life, and every good thing flows from His inexhaustible love.