Francis Jane Crosby wrote more than 9,000 hymns, some of which are among the most popular in every Christian denomination. She wrote so many that she was forced to use pen names so the hymnals would not be filled with her name above all others.   Among them are “Blessed Assurance,” “All the Way My Savior Leads Me,” “To God Be the Glory,” and  “Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior.”

For most people, the most remarkable thing about her was that she wrote songs in spite of her blindness .  The gifted blind hymn-writer Fanny Crosby wrote these lines as a girl of eight:

O what a happy soul am I
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 and I won’t.

“I think it is a great pity that the Master did not give you sight when he showered so many other gifts upon you,” remarked one well-meaning preacher. Fanny Crosby responded at once, as she had heard such comments before. “Do you know that if at birth I had been able to make one petition, it would have been that I was born blind?” said the poet, who had been able to see only for her first six weeks of life. “Because when I get to heaven, the first face that shall ever gladden my sight will be that of my Savior.”[1]