On this day in 1915, the iconic hymn writer Fanny Crosby entered into glory at the age of 94. Crosby is a household name in Christianity. She composed over 8000 hymns and gospel songs. She was hailed as the Queen of Gospel music. Not only that but she was also an accomplished poet. Crosby’s childhood was mired with tragedy and heartache. At six weeks old Frances contracted a simple cold, but it caused an infection in her eyes. The local doctor was out of town and another man masquerading as a doctor treated her with a hot mustard poultice. This treatment left Fanny blind for the rest of her life. A few months later her dad passed away, leaving her mother to work many hours toiling as a maid just to make ends meet. One would have assumed that the multitude of tragedies would have destroyed Fanny, but it was quite the opposite. She was labeled as a happy child. She was faithful to church and loved Jesus. She had a passion for the Bible. She had memorized the four Gospels, the Pentateuch, Proverbs, and countless other books of the Bible before she turned 15! She attended a school in New York City for the blind. She excelled while she was there. She wrote countless poems which were considered masterpieces at her time. But her greatest love started in 1864. She started to pen hymns. Her songs revolutionized church singing during that era. Most songs were evangelistic in nature, pleading with people to come to Jesus Christ for salvation. Writing thousands of hymns that are still used today seems like quite an accomplishment, but Fanny found her greatest satisfaction in working alongside the poor in New York City. Fanny purposefully choose to live in a poor area of town so she could minister to hurting people in rescue missions. She would regularly speak and serve the hardest of people in places like Hell’s Kitchen and ‘the tenderloin.’ Her song “Rescue the Perishing” was written while working alongside the lost living in the slums. She continued to reach the perishing until her death in 1915.
Fanny didn’t allow the setbacks in her life to unravel the plans that God had set before her. She even saw God’s providential hand in her blindness. Fanny once said, “when I get to heaven, the first face that shall ever gladden my sight will be that of my Savior.” Think of that word setback for a moment. It’s defined as a reversal of progress, or when your life goes much differently than you originally planned. Each of us has experienced them multiple times in our life. We’ve experienced setbacks when we didn’t get the raise we wanted, when we lost our job, when a tragedy strikes our homes, when we have an unexpected result at a doctor’s office, etc. Setbacks are hard because they seemingly cause us to rearrange our life. But what if our setbacks are only comebacks? That setback isn’t meant to derail our faith, but instead, it should cause us to intensely follow after Christ. The words of the Apostle Paul give us clear direction on how to navigate this area of life. In Romans 5:3 and 5 Paul writes “we triumph even in our troubles, knowing that trouble produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope….a hope which never disappoints us since God’s love floods our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.” We can triumph over life’s setbacks knowing that God is in control and everything that comes our way can be viewed through eyes of hope. Don’t allow the setbacks to set you back spiritually. Instead, look at it and ask, what is God doing in the midst of this?
No comments:
Post a Comment