THIS IS MY STORY

FANNY CROSBY: THIS IS MY STORY, THIS IS MY SONG 

When Francis Jane Crosby was only six weeks old, she was taken to a doctor to treat an inflammation in her eyes caused by a cold. The regular physician was out of town, and the substitute gave little Fanny's parents a faulty treatment that blinded the child within days. 

She was blind for the rest of her life. That first tragedy was followed by others. Her father died when Fanny was just a year old, and her mother had to hire herself out as a maid to provide for the family. Fanny was able to attend a school for blind children and afterwards taught there, but when she was 29 a cholera epidemic killed more than half of the children in the school. After she married, her only child died in infancy.

Yet, in spite of these tragedies, Francis Jane was always a cheerful, happy person, free from the bitterness that so easily besets humans. When only eight years old, she wrote a poem that revealed a lot about the spunky little girl who climbed trees and played practical jokes in spite of her blindness:

Oh what a happy child 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!
So weep or sigh because I'm blind I cannot-nor I won't!

Fanny had a natural talent for writing poems and was often asked to recite her poetry. Eventually, her writing brought her national recognition; she was invited to visit presidents and generals and other notable dignitaries. She even was asked to play at President Grant's funeral. When she finally died in 1915, just 6 weeks shy of her 95th birthday, Fanny had written over 8,500 poems and songs.

Most importantly, Fanny loved Jesus Christ. Fanny's love for her Savior became the inspiration for her thousands of songs and poems, many of which are still sung in churches every weekend today. Many beloved hymns bear the name Fanny Crosby, including "To God be the glory, great things He hath done," "I am thine, O Lord, I have heard thy voice," and "Blessed Assurance."

When a preacher once sympathetically remarked that it was a pity God had not given her sight, Fanny replied, "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?" The preacher asked her why. "Because" she said, "When I get to heaven, the first face that shall ever gladden my sight will be that of my Savior!"

Focusing on Jesus and seeing the good in God's plans for her, Fanny reached millions of people around the world. Children in church and soldiers on the battlefield alike have been touched by her words. May we, like Fanny Crosby, rejoice in the goodness of our God in every situation, that like her we can sing:

"This is my story, this is my song, Praising my Savior, all the day long."

SING PRAISE TO THE LORD

Mark Chandler

RENEW YOUR STRENGTH

They That Wait upon the Lord
"But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." (Isaiah 40:31)

This is one of the best-loved promises of the Bible, for it is easy to grow weary and faint in our mortal bodies, even when doing the work of the Lord. The answer, we are told, is to "wait upon the LORD."

But what does this mean? The Hebrew word (gavah) does not mean "serve," but rather to "wait for" or "look for." It is translated "waited for" the second time it is used in the Bible, when the dying patriarch Jacob cried out: "I have waited for thy salvation, O LORD" (Genesis 49:18).

The first time it is used, surprisingly, is in connection with the third day of creation, when God said: "Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place" (Genesis 1:9). That is, the all-pervasive waters of the original creation, divided on the second day of creation, now are told to wait patiently, as it were, while God formed the geosphere, the biosphere, and the astrosphere, before dealing again with the waters.

Perhaps the clearest insight into its meaning is its use in the picture of Christ foreshadowed in the 40th Psalm. "I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry" (Psalm 40:1).

"The everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary" (Isaiah 40:28), and His gracious promise is that we can "renew our strength" (literally, "exchange our strength," our weakness for His strength!) by "waiting upon |Him|." We wait patiently for Him, we gather together unto Him, we look for Him, we cry unto Him, we trust Him, and He renews our strength!















Sing Praise To The Lord

Mark Chandler

LIGHT

Dividing Light from Darkness

"And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness." (Genesis 1:3-4)

Initially, the created cosmos was in darkness—a darkness which God Himself had to create ("I form the light, and create darkness"—Isaiah 45:7). But then the dark cosmos was energized by the Spirit's moving, and God's light appeared. The darkness was not dispelled, however, but only divided from the light, and the day/night sequence began, which has continued ever since.

This sequence of events in the physical creation is a beautiful type of the spiritual creation, "a new creature" (2 Corinthians 5:17). Each individual is born in spiritual darkness, but "God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6). We are now "partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light," because He "hath delivered us from the power of darkness" (Colossians 1:12-13).

However, the light in the primeval darkness resulted only in a division of night and day. The night still comes, but God has promised that, in the coming Holy City, "there shall be no night there" (Revelation 22:5).

Just so, even though we have been given a new nature of light, the old nature of darkness is still striving within, and we have to be exhorted: "For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light" (Ephesians 5:8). Nevertheless, "the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day" (Proverbs 4:18). When we reach that city of everlasting light, all spiritual darkness will vanish as well, for "there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth" (Revelation 21:27), and we shall be like Christ.















Sing Praise To The Lord

Mark Chandler