From Paralysis to the Hallelujah Chorus

In 1737, George Frideric Handel collapsed. A stroke paralyzed his right side, and doctors feared the fifty-two-year-old composer would never play again. Though he eventually recovered movement at a spa in Aachen, the years that followed brought mounting debts, failed operas, and dwindling audiences. By 1741, Handel was a broken man considering retirement.

Then a friend named Charles Jennens handed him a libretto — a collection of Scripture passages woven together to tell the story of redemption. Something stirred in Handel. He sat down at his desk and, over the course of roughly twenty-four days, composed the entire oratorio we know as Messiah — 259 pages of music, including the "Hallelujah Chorus" that would echo through centuries.

When it premiered in Dublin in April 1742, audiences were stunned. A man whose hands had been paralyzed wrote music that lifted thousands of hands in worship.

This is what the Almighty does. He doesn't wait for us to be whole before He uses us. He doesn't require a spotless resume or a steady hand. He takes the paralyzed places — the failed seasons, the mounting losses, the moments when we are ready to quit — and He composes something through us that we never could have written on our own.

Whatever feels finished in your life, God is not done writing. The same hands that were paralyzed can still produce a hallelujah.