BY DOROTHY AMANKWAH

I imagine when Habakkuk prayed,

His hands were clenched

Eyes shut tight

Knees scraped

From kneeling too long on the floor

Tears welled up and streamed down to the river of mercy

Where he cried

“O Lord, How long shall I cry for help and you will not hear?”

 

To be a Habakkuk of today

Is to question God

With a mind frozen

In the horrors

Of Wars, child abuse, human-trafficking, climate change, Me Too movements

Me too, I am suffering

Like Habakkuk

How can a good God idly watch as evil ransack the world?

 

Yet Habakkuk still called you, Lord

When the evil around him looked nothing like your Kingdom, Oh Lord

To be a Habakkuk of today

Is to hold hands with you

And though mind frozen

Heart be wrapped

With warmth of intimacy.

When I question you like Habakkuk

To remember you are Lord, Creator, Master

Not a clockmaker

Laughing as the time ticks

Ticking off human life

 

But a Habakkuk of today I have not been,

Instead

I have accused you

Called you cruel

To disguise my inability to understand your reality

Claimed you to be a God without order,

Unable to order the people you created to matter

Confirmed you capricious

Never constant, I am led to tears

That you would not save a world plagued by fears and anxieties

 

In my anxiety, Lord, bring me back to Habakkuk’s prayer

For Habakkuk remembered

That you used plagues

To rescue the Israelites

Let my knees bleed red

And my heart stay white

Even when my mind feels blue

Help us to see the fruit of the Fig tree

Even before its flowers begin to bloom

And at the river of mercy

Let grace remind us of your everlasting love and the eternity of your presence.