Women On The Frontlines: A Call To The Secret PlaceSample

Fanny Crosby: Songs from the Secret Place

Fanny Crosby was blind since birth. Despite this, Fanny wrote about nine thousand hymns in her lifetime. Her style was revolutionary for her day. Instead of mimicking the traditional, old-fashioned hymn language, she expressed thoughts and prayers in common words that touched the hearts of worshiping believers. Her obvious passion for God drew the lost into His kingdom.

Fanny was 28 years old when the event inspiring her hymns occurred. In 1848, cholera broke out and Fanny contracted the disease. She recovered, but her close brush with death made her think about dying. She had believed in God and His goodness but had never experienced conversion. During this time of seeking and soul-searching, Fanny dreamed she visited a dying man. The man asked her if she would meet him in heaven after their deaths. She responded in the dream that, by God’s help, she would. The dream ended as the man said, “Remember, you promised a dying man!”

The experience drew Fanny to a deeper place of seeking God. After a couple of attempts, the third time she went to the altar something happened. Bonnie C. Harvey described what followed: “During the fifth verse of ‘Alas and Did My Savior Bleed?’ Fanny prayed, ‘Here Lord, I give myself away. ’Tis all that I can do.’ Suddenly Fanny felt ‘my very soul was flooded with celestial light.’ She jumped to her feet, shouting, ‘Hallelujah! Hallelujah!’ She said, ‘For the first time I realized that I had been trying to hold the world in one hand and the Lord in the other.’”

Fanny called this event her “November experience.” From that point on, her life was totally dedicated to God. It was out of this experience that many of her later hymns were born. Fanny freely gave away the gift that God deposited within her. She wrote under at least 204 pen names, and she wrote verses for friends who published them with their own melodies. No one actually knows just how many hymns and poems she wrote. It did not matter to her who got the credit, as long as God could be glorified.

Fanny understood the power of distraction and would purposely take time alone with God at night. Every day, she found a place to be alone with Him, even when it meant sleepless nights. He was her rest and peace.