The Music That Came From Ruin

In the summer of 1741, George Frideric Handel was a broken man. The composer who had once dazzled the courts of Europe was now sixty-six years old, drowning in debt, and recovering from a stroke that had partially paralyzed his right hand. London's audiences had moved on. His operas were failing. Friends worried he was finished.

Then a libretto arrived from Charles Jennens — a collection of scripture passages telling the story of the Messiah. Handel began to write. For twenty-four days he barely ate or slept, filling page after page with some of the most magnificent music ever composed. When his servant brought him food during the composition of the Hallelujah Chorus, he found Handel weeping. "I did think I did see all Heaven before me," Handel said, "and the great God Himself."

What emerged from those three and a half weeks was Messiah — a work that has been performed continuously for nearly three centuries, lifting countless souls toward the Almighty.

Here is what strikes me: God did not use Handel at the height of his fame. He used him at his lowest point. The hands that could barely grip a pen wrote the Hallelujah Chorus. The man the world had discarded became a vessel for glory.

Faith does not require that we have everything together. It requires only that we remain open to what the Most High can do through our emptiness.