The Composer Who Rose from Ruin

In 1741, George Frideric Handel was a broken man. At fifty-six, he had survived a devastating stroke four years earlier, his operas were failing, and he was drowning in debt. London's critics openly mocked him. By every measure that mattered to the world, his career was finished.

Then a libretto arrived from Charles Jennens — scripture passages woven together to tell the story of the Messiah. Something stirred in the aging composer. For twenty-four days, Handel barely ate or slept, writing in a white-hot burst of inspiration that left his servants bewildered. When he completed the Hallelujah Chorus, he was reportedly found weeping. "I did think I did see all Heaven before me," he told his servant, "and the great God Himself."

Messiah — born from a season of devastation — became one of the most beloved works in the history of music, still filling churches and concert halls nearly three centuries later.

This is how the Almighty works. He does not wait for us to have it all together. He meets us in the wreckage. Paul wrote, "If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here" (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Your worst season is not your final season. The same God who drew the most glorious music ever written from a broken, bankrupt composer is composing something new in you right now — turning your rubble into a hallelujah.