Fanny Crosby wrote over 9,000 hymns during her life. She was born in New York on 24th March, 1820.  As a baby, she had an eye infection which an incompetent doctor treated by placing hot poultices on her inflamed eyelids. The infection cleared up, but scars were formed on her eyes. 

    Although blinded at the age of 6 weeks, she never became bitter. One time a preacher sympathetically remarked, "I think it is a great pity that the Master did not give you sight when He showered so many other gifts upon you." She replied quickly, "Do you know that if at birth I had been able to make one petition, it would have been that I should be born blind?" "Why?" asked the surprised minister. "Because when I get to heaven, the first face that shall ever gladden my sight will be that of my Saviour!"

    One of Miss Crosby's hymns was so personal that for years she kept it to herself. However, one day at the Bible conference in Northfield, Massachusetts, she was asked by D.L. Moody to give a personal testimony. At first she hesitated, then quietly rose and said, 'There is one hymn I have written which has never been published. I call it my soul's poem. Sometimes when I am troubled, I repeat it to myself, for it brings comfort to my heart.' She then recited:

Someday the silver cord will break,

and I no more as now shall sing;

but oh, the joy when I shall wake

within the palace of the King!

And I shall see Him face to face,

and tell the story--saved by grace!

    At the age of 95 Fanny Crosby passed on. On her grave in Bridgeport, there is a simple  headstone with the name "Aunt Fanny," and the words:

"Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine.

Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine".

Such an assurance is gained only through a personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

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