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Blessed Assurance

What is the story behind this globally known hymn? Read about this with lessons to share by Rev David Rex Orgen

Blessed Assurance song was composed by Mrs. Joseph Knapp, an amateur musician. She was the wife of the founder of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, and a close personal friend of Fanny Crosby.

One day Mrs. Knapp played a melody for the blind poetess, and asked: What does this tune say? Fanny responded immediately. “Why, that says: Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine.”

Fanny Crosby was probably the most prolific hymn writer in history. Though blinded by an incompetent doctor at 6 weeks of age, she wrote over 8,000 hymns. About her blindness, 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.”

A doctor may have caused Fanny Crosby to lose her sight, but it was the Holy Spirit that gave her insight that many never experience. I think Isaiah 42:16 describes Fanny Crosby: “And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.” Out of all the hymns that she wrote, there is one hymn that sticks out in my mind and heart…a hymn that will live on throughout the ages…

We pray that the eyes of your understanding (mind) may be enlightened, so that you may know the hope of Christ’s calling, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints.

Remain blessed!

Rev. David Rex Orgen

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