Praise Him! Praise Him!

If you had to forfeit the use of one of your senses for a week, which one would it be?  Sight, hearing, taste, touch or smell: which would you choose?  Would you spend that week grousing about the loss?  Would you let everyone know what a sacrifice your life was under as a result of this inconvenience?  Would you be even more grateful for that sense when it was returned?

Fanny Crosby was born with sight, but in infancy she was blinded by a medical mistake.  Fanny really never saw it that way, however.  She saw it as the special gift that God had given her.   She found that the soul has beautiful vision.  Fanny wrote her hymns during a great period of revival that ran from the time of the Wesleys, from around 1735, to the great revivals of the twentieth century, to around 1950.   Charles Wesley contributed over 6000 to start with.  Fanny Crosby added about 8000 of her own.  Other prolific hymn writers of that period added a thousand or more each.  Many more writers wrote a few hundred hymns each and some of our favorite hymns of that period were the only ones written by that particular author. 

Many of Fanny’s hymns have remained popular over a century after she went home to the Lord.  Most of her songs were not the great doctrinal works of the Reformation.  Those grounded the church in what it believed.  Many of Wesley’s hymns were also written in the same vein.  Crosby’s hymns and Gospel songs, however, were largely a personal expression of praise.  They lifted the heart in joyful praise to the saving God.  They extolled His keeping grace.  They testified of the eternal hope of each believer.  They were very personal, not just to Fanny, but to all who found voice in making exclamations of praise.

It is hard to choose one hymn for recognition here, so I chose two.  One is the title today and one is the one on her tombstone, “Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine.”  Rejoice today in singing with Fanny her song of remembrance.

“Blessèd assurance, Jesus is mine! O what a foretaste of glory divine! Heir of salvation, purchase of God, born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.  This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior, all the day long; this is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior, all the day long.  Perfect submission, all is at rest I in my Savior am happy and blest, watching and waiting, looking above, filled with His goodness, lost in His love.”

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