Daily Verse
Wednesday, July 29, 2026
Hope
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Wednesday's Reflection
Romans 15:13 — Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.
When Fanny Crosby was just six weeks old, a minor eye infection was treated improperly, and the mistake left her blind for the rest of her life. She would never see her mother's face, a sunrise, or the words she would one day write. By any reckoning, that is a hard beginning, and the world would have understood if her life had been marked by bitterness. Instead, Fanny Crosby became one of the most radiantly hopeful people who ever lived. At the age of eight, she wrote a little verse that set the tone for her entire ninety-five years: "Oh what a happy soul am I! Although I cannot see, I am resolved that in this world contented I will be."
That contentment was not denial — it was hope, anchored in God, overflowing into joy. Fanny Crosby went on to write around eight thousand hymns, more than anyone in history. Songs that have carried hope to millions of people in their darkest hours came from the pen of a woman who had never seen daylight. "Blessed Assurance." "All the Way My Savior Leads Me." "To God Be the Glory." She wrote of light she could not see and of a Savior she knew more surely than sight. When someone once expressed pity for her blindness, she replied that if she had been given the choice, she would have chosen to be blind anyway — because the first face she would ever see would be the face of her Savior when she reached heaven.
Paul prays that the God of hope would fill the believers with joy and peace, so that they would overflow with hope by the power of the Spirit. Fanny Crosby is what that prayer looks like when it is answered. Her hope did not depend on her circumstances improving — her blindness never lifted. It came from a different source entirely: a God of hope who filled her, so that hope poured out of her and into songs that are still lifting the despairing today. Hope that depends on good circumstances is fragile. Hope that comes from the God of hope can sing in the dark.
Prayer: God of hope, fill us as You filled Fanny Crosby — with a joy and peace that do not depend on our circumstances, but overflow from You. Make us people who can sing in the dark, anchored in a hope the world cannot explain. Amen.