The inspiration of this post is a lady named Fanny. Fanny Crosby. She lived a looong life- died in 1915 just before her 95th birthday! (i feel like i've been around a good while, that's my life x 4!) In her 95 years she wrote over 8,000 hymns. eight. thousand. Maybe you've heard of To God be the Glory? Or Blessed Assurance? Good tunes. On her 92nd birthday she said "if in all the world you can find a happier person than I am, do bring him to me. I should like to shake his hand." What a cool chica! Oh, by the by, little small thing. No big deal, but she lost her sight at 6 weeks of age. Completely. She never saw a sunset, never knew what her husband or children looked like, never saw a thing in this world. I may not have 20/20 vision but I can walk from here to the door without bumping into anything (probably), I can pick up my Bible and read the words, I can sit down and watch a movie with my roomies. I can drive a car. I can become a doctor. Oh man could she have used that to get some pity. But look at what wisdom she had at age 8 when she wrote the following poem:
- 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, and I won't.
How great is that? Later in her life she said "It seemed intended by the blessed providence of God that I should be blind all my life, and I thank him for the dispensation. If perfect earthly sight were offered me tomorrow I would not accept it. I might not have sung hymns to the praise of God if I had been distracted by the beautiful and interesting things about me." And even cooler this realization- "when I get to heaven, the first face that shall ever gladden my sight will be that of my Savior." Love it!
Philippians 4:4 says "Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again, rejoice." Fanny is such an awesome example of this! If she had started writing hymns at birth, that would be about 84 hymns a year, more than one a week. That's a lot of rejoicing. Man, do I need help with this! I don't rejoice always! I don't even always rejoice in the good things I should be rejoicing about, i definitely don't rejoice in the little annoyances of the day, and hands down, not rejoicing in the hard hits that come my way. But oh do I have so much to rejoice about. Plus the simple truth that God has this amazing plan for my life. So that everything that comes my way, big or small, good or bad, its not all just chance happenings, God ordained it to be because He is GOD and He knows us better than we know ourselves! The things that don't make sense, they make sense to Him. What would it be like to look at a hinderance so great as blindness and say, "I never wanted sight! It would only be a distraction from my worship of God!"
I have a friend who has dealt with something heavy their whole life. It be so easy to say woe is me, and I'm sure people would take pity on them. Yet you almost forget about their battle because they never complain. It's a truly endearing quality about them. I doubt they so much see it as an entirely good thing, but hopefully they can see the good that has come from it. How that struggle has been a part of shaping their life, and the lives that they've been able to touch and will touch and CAN touch in the future in a way that you and I could just not do because we haven't been in that same boat. And I am talking about one specific person but really it could be anyone because we all have our own battles. What if Ms Fanny had been bitter towards God for taking her sight from her and just sat back and let people care for her her whole life? And what if she hadn't been blind? Would she still have become a songwriter or would she have pursued other things that she couldn't do due to her blindness? Countless numbers of people have been touched by the words of her hymns. God had a plan.
Now we can rejoice always and NOT necessarily be happy in all situations. You won't find a verse in the Bible that says, Be happy always! I'd rather be happy always, but stuff happens. Really really devastating things happen. If a loved one died and I was just bubbling with happiness and acting completely normal, something would be wrong with me. Happiness is a fleeting emotion that depends on the circumstances of our lives. Joy is not. It's something so much deeper that comes from faith in Christ and Him becoming a part of us. It's delighting in Him who has died for us and loves us more than we can imagine. And that will not change. The joy of the Lord is our strength! John 15:11 shows He wants His joy to remain in us and for that joy to be full. May we know the joy God has to offer us and may we remember that joy and rejoice through the trials of life because of a Savior that is always faithful.
Be this the purpose of my soul,
My solemn, my determined choice;
To yield to God's supreme control,
And in my every trial rejoice.
-Anon
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