The Composer Who Wrote From Ruins

In 1741, George Frideric Handel was a broken man. The composer who had once dazzled the courts of Europe now faced crippling debt. His operas had flopped. Four years earlier, a stroke had paralyzed his right side, and though he recovered the use of his hand at a spa in Aachen, his career never regained its footing. At fifty-six, Handel was widely considered finished.

Then a librettist named Charles Jennens sent him a scripture compilation — passages from Isaiah, the Psalms, the Gospels, and Revelation, stitched together to tell the story of the Messiah. Something stirred in Handel. He began writing. For roughly twenty-four days he barely ate or slept, and when he emerged, he held the manuscript for what would become one of the most performed choral works in history. When he reached the Hallelujah Chorus, his servant reportedly found him weeping. "I did think I did see all Heaven before me," Handel said, "and the great God Himself."

Here is what stuns me about that story. The Almighty did not wait for Handel to get his life together. He met a bankrupt, half-paralyzed, forgotten composer right in the ruins — and gave him a song about redemption.

That is how God works. He does not restore us first and then hand us purpose. He walks into the wreckage and says, "Start writing." Your broken season is not disqualification. In the hands of Jehovah, it may be the very instrument He uses to declare His glory.