Life Matters - August 28, 2024
While the song-writing poetry of Fanny Crosby continues to bless and inspire millions, what we don’t experience is the heartache of her parents when they discovered their little girl was blind. What we don’t experience are the struggles of a young girl wanting to emerge from her dark world to…what? What we don’t experience are the struggles of a mother and grandmother refusing to give in to frustration, rather, patiently teaching their little girl as she grew to adulthood, helping her not only to discover the world through touch, but in doing so, also discover how to touch the world with the Gospel message through poetry.
Fanny Crosby lost her eyesight, at age six weeks, to medical malpractice. Her father died when she was six months old. But she was raised by her Puritan mother and grandmother who diligently planted seeds of the Gospel message that would later flower into full bloom when she committed her heart and life to her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Bible memorization began very early in her life, organized and encouraged by the dear ladies who raised her. Fanny memorized, by age fifteen, the four gospels, the Pentateuch, the Book of Proverbs, the Song of Solomon, and many of the Psalms. At age eight she composed her first poem, written as follows;
“Oh! what a happy soul I am!
Although I cannot see,
I am resolved that in this world,
Contented I will be.
How many blessings I enjoy,
That other people don’t!
To weep and sigh because I’m blind,
I cannot nor I won’t!”
Fanny Crosby was blind to this material world but keenly aware of the spiritual. To the carnal mind her life was ruined by a physician’s ignorance. Despair could have been her lot in life.
But God…God saw the end from the beginning and Fanny Crosby’s Gospel message in song continues to bless and inspire millions to this day. Drawing us to God by His Love. The goal, the end, that God has in mind for us is to be in the everlasting presence of His Love, and the means He uses are to that end.
The end does NOT justify the means for Satan whose end is destruction and whose means are deception. The end also does not justify the means for mortal man because ‘’now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face; now we know in part but then shall we know even as also we are known.’’ (1 Corinthians 13:12 ) The end does not justify the means for mortal man because, though we may love, we are not Love, our very essence is not Love, it is fallible. God only is Love and infallible, incapable of wrong-doing and wrong judgement. Incapable? God, who is all-powerful, is limited by His Holiness. He cannot lie. He is incapable of wrong-doing.
There are some things that God cannot do, not that He dare not, nor even that there would be terrible repercussions if He did. God cannot lie. (Hebrews 6:18) He cannot sin. He is incapable of malevolence. He is incapable of hatred. Except hatred for sin. God has limited Himself in allowing us to choose our own way or to choose Him. He has voluntarily chosen the vulnerable place of needing to attract, to draw us, to Himself by His Love for the purpose of which He uses vessels of dishonor as well as vessels of honor. Though vessels of honor are His perfect will, yet, if one chooses the way of sin and dishonor, thus damning one’s own soul, God does use both vessels of dishonor and vessels of honor. For God’s divine purpose is leading those to salvation who allow themselves to be led by Him. As sheep following their Divine Shepherd.
Life Matters!