The following is the text of a speech I am giving this Friday at Westmont College's chapel:
"One of my favorite song lyrics of all time comes from the hymn “Blessed Assurance,” where the chorus declares, “This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior, all the day long.” The story of Fanny Crosby, the woman who wrote “Blessed Assurance,” is living proof that the Author of Life is busy writing remarkable stories using the conflicts, characters, and events from each of our lives.
Fanny Crosby was born on March 24th, 1820 in a village north of New York City. Like many stories, her life began with great conflict. When she was six weeks old, she caught a cold that caused inflammation in her eyes. The doctor who treated her used questionable methods, and when his treatment destroyed Fanny’s eyes and blinded her for life, he left town. It was later discovered that he was an unqualified physician who had deceived her parents. Despite this tragedy, Fanny was not a bitter girl. At the age of eight when doctors in New York City confirmed that her sight was irreparable, she wrote the following words in her diary: “Oh what a happy soul I am, although I cannot see, I am resolved that in this world, contented I will be.” Fanny had a perfect auditory memory and was able to memorize entire books simply by hearing them read aloud. Despite her genius, her school teachers did not know how to teach her, so they covered up their inadequacies by calling her stupid and ignoring her in class. When she was fifteen, she was accepted into the New York Institute for the Blind where she quickly excelled as a scholar and became the resident poet of the school. Notable officials often visited the institute, and Fanny was always asked to read a poem for them. Over the course of her time there, Fanny read to twenty-two American Presidents from John-Quincy Adams to Woodrow Wilson, and one of them, James Polk, became a close friend. At the age of twenty-two, she was hired onto the school's faculty. A year later, she became the first woman in US history to be invited to speak before the US Congress and Senate to advocate for the rights of disabled citizens. Up until this time, she had pursued secular poetry only, until tragedy struck again. When a cholera epidemic ravaged the school, she lost many close friends and almost died herself. This experience shook her to the core, and she surrendered her life to Christ wholeheartedly. An unquenchable passion for the Lord was birthed from her broken-heartedness, and she began to write hymns, often writing six hymns a day. By the time she died in 1915, she had written over 10,000 hymns.
One of those hymns, "Blessed Assurance," swept across the nation after it became an anthem for revival meetings. According to Fanny, the hymn was written as a meditation on Hebrews 10:22, which says, "Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience…” Each verse of the hymn describes a different element in the experience of surrendering to God. The chorus shows us the end result of that surrender: a life story written by God Himself and a heart that praises Him daily. This hymn urges us to lay the pen on the table in surrender and let God write our story, beginning first with surrendering our hearts to the cleansing blood of Christ, and then surrendering everything else to His Authorship.
Whether it is movies, novels, or TV shows, stories only interest us if the characters experience great conflict that transforms their world within and without. If Fanny had written her own story, she would not have chosen to be blind from infancy. And yet, that tragedy was the twist in her story that led her to her destiny, which included everything from befriending presidents to writing hymns to advocating for the rights of the disabled before Congress. This hymn reminds me that it is much better if I stop trying to write my own story. It is better if God writes my story, even if that means I will face great conflict. As we see in the Cross, God can take the most painful moments in our lives and turn them into our greatest victories. In the face of great tragedy and conflict, Christ is indeed our “blessed assurance.” As we sing this hymn, I encourage you to surrender everything in your life to Christ and let the Author and Finisher of your faith write your story."
Concerts, 
