Blessed Assurance

In last week’s post I wrote about the importance of stout God-centered theology being taught by theologically-grounded leaders so that all-out division within a church can be prevented. This week I provide an example of how this works from one of America’s most well-known hymn writers, Fanny Crosby. To understand how her biography illustrates the prevention of soured and severed relationships, we must not forget that conflict is often the outworking of our anger and bitterness in response to hurts and disappointments.

The following account of Crosby comes from the Aurora, Nebraska E. Free Church pastor, Vance Christie, in his book Women Of Faith And Courage (Christian Focus, 2011), pages 67-69. Read this and consider just how gloriously Crosby proves the point.

When John and Mercy Crosby’s daughter, Frances Jane, was just six weeks old, she developed an inflammation of the eyes as the result of a cold. The regular doctor of their community of Southeast in Putnam County, New York, was away at the time. Another man, who claimed to be a doctor but apparently was more of a quack, offered to treat the infant’s eyes. He put a hot poultice over her eyes, insisting it would draw out the infection. Instead, it all but destroyed the child’s sight. When the Crosbys accused the man, whose name has not been preserved, of blinding their baby, he fled Southeast, never to be heart from again.

To the end of her long life, which stretched out for some ninety-five years, Fanny Crosby was able to see only bright light and vivid colors, and those but faintly. Other than that she was totally blind, being unable to see distinct details or even indistinct shapes. But this seeming tragedy led to her developing an overcoming spirit, an incredibly retentive mind and an exceptional poetic gift, all of which played into her becoming the world’s foremost hymnwriter of her generation. As result, she wrote toward the end of her life of the accident that took her sight and the individual who was responsible for it: “But I have not for a moment, in more than eighty-five years, felt a spark of resentment against him because I have always believed from my youth to this very moment that the good Lord, in His infinite mercy, by this means consecrated me to the work that I am still permitted to do. When I remember His mercy and lovingkindness; when I have been blessed above the common lot of mortals; and when happiness has touched the deep places of my soul,--how can I [complain]?”

Vance goes on to write one page later of the family’s church during Fanny’s early years:  “Every Sunday the family walked or rode a mile and a half to the Southeast Church, a Presbyterian meetinghouse…. There parishioners were nurtured on the substantive Calvinistic teaching of the Puritans, doctrine to which the Crosbys adhered.”

Is it any wonder that this godly woman found “blessed assurance” (the title of one of her best-known hymns) in the providence of God, even though it meant her life-long blindness? It is this kind of faith that produces love and forgiveness, not bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander, and malice—all of which divide one person from another and can eventually split a whole congregation.

So, pursue rich, God-centered Bible teaching, reading, and theology—not only for your benefit and joy, but also for the health of the body of Christ!