My best friend named Habbakuk.

“How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen?”

Habakkuk is an interesting guy, I’ll tell ya that. Pastor Kate introduced the two of us this past Wednesday at pause. Now you see, I thought he was going to be like Isaiah with lots of questions and curious to seek more and more of God, but let’s all be real here: he was calling God out. How long did he have to wait? How long was he going to ask questions? How long was he going to have to keep spreading the good word of the Lord if he didn’t even have the answers himself?

Sometimes I feel like Habbakuk and I should’ve been best friends (I mean, if we had lived at the same time). Of course I’ve had my “Oh, so that’s who God is” moments, but like any other college student, well, any other person living on Earth in today’s world, I’ve witnessed and asked God this question. “How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen?” Now, you see God and I have always had a pretty good relationship. He’s led me to find camp and all that comes with it, to know that there’s a pretty special guy waiting out there for me, and more about how to live my life as a follower of Christ. When I started the school year, I was pretty excited. But of course, like anyone, there were some burdens that came with that. I haven’t had time to tell a lot of people about what’s been happening, but I felt called to recently and thought this could be the place to start.

My mom was diagnosed with colon cancer back in May and to be honest, I haven’t thought about it too much, which is probably why I just haven’t been able to tell people yet. At first, it came with all of the hard questions like “What stage are you in?” and “How much cancer is actually in your body?” And although it wasn’t fair, I thought about the worst. And I never really asked God why the whole thing was happening. Over the course of the summer and up until now my mom has been handling the chemo relatively fine, but she occasionally has low counts in her body. That means if anyone gets her sick, she could be in serious trouble. She also tells me she is tired and never has enough energy to complete a lot of the things she’d like to. Part of me wants to just say, “God, I know everything is okay and You’re dealing with it” but the other half wants to say “Really? After all this time and You’re going to put my mother of all people through this?” It really hurts my heart to be conflicted in such a way that goes against God and what I believe in (in a sense), but sometimes I just am so upset with God and I don’t get my questions answered. How do I continue to love and be loved with a situation that is bigger than myself or anyone else to handle?

On top of that, my great-grandma passed away just last week and I’ve recently lost someone who was a great friend to me. Now, I’m not trying to be like Habbakuk in the sense of being a complainer (sorry buddy), but how does God put up with things like this? I know He didn’t purposefully want this to happen, but how can He just sit around and expect me to deal with all of it?

I found peace in the same answer He gave to Habbakuk:

“Look at the nations and watch—
and be utterly amazed.
For I am going to do something in your days
that you would not believe,
even if you were told.”

And now every time I think about my mom or every other crazy thing happening around me, I will simply remember this: For I am going to do something in your days that you would not even believe even if you were told. That, my friends, is why I am Christian and Lutheran and why I believe my God will come to heal and change and love all things.

+Proverbs 3:5-6

Megan Luken