BY CLIFF SMELLEY
Telegraph Staff Writer
Would he live or die?
Micah Huling was once so sick, he wondered what the answer to that question would be. However, in the midst of his illness, he came to the realization that what he wanted the answer to be wasn’t what was important.
How did God want to answer that question? What was His will for Huling’s life?
As it turned out, it was for Huling to live and to draw closer to Him and serve Him as the new minister to youth and families at First Church of Starke (formerly First United Methodist).
“The Bible’s filled with stories of people who have been redeemed and been on one path and then set on another path,” Huling said. “That’s definitely no different from my life.”
Huling, a 2014 Bradford High School graduate, said he reached a point where God and church didn’t play huge roles in his life. He said he thought he knew all there was to being successful in life.
“I had it all figured out,” he said. “Thank God I’ve been shown that is not the case. I’m much happier that it’s not. I’m happy that I don’t have to do it all on my own.”
It has been a full-circle journey, with Huling returning to the church he attended as a teenager until his graduation from BHS.
“When I got back, it was like I never left,” Huling said. “It was amazing. They were just so loving.”
You can go home again. More importantly, you can return to God after straying from Him.
A shift in focus
Huling joined the Army after graduating from BHS and was stationed in Germany for two years after going through basic training. It was a culture shock for a 19-year-old and part of an experience that took him further away from what he experienced as a First Church youth. He was no longer attending church services on Wednesdays and Sundays. His focus was on serving the Army and fulfilling the mission.
“The Army was great, and I have a ton of good stories and good friends because of it, but it’s not a religious organization,” Huling said. “It’s very secular.”
Having said that, Huling admitted it was his responsibility to maintain his relationship with God.
“I did not do what I was supposed to be doing,” he said. “I was not in the word. I wasn’t praying. There was even a time, truthfully, where I was altogether like, ‘There is no God. God’s not real.’
“Shameful to think of now, but at the same time, the path that I took is the path that led me to where I am today.”
During the three years Huling spent stationed at Fort Stewart, Georgia, he was in a relationship in with a woman who was involved in church.
“That was kind of like me peeking back into church,” he said. “At that point, I became like your casual church-goer.”
Huling and that woman were actually engaged to be married, but the relationship ended before it got that far. Later, he would meet the woman he did in fact marry: Beverly Detlefsen, who’s also a 2014 BHS graduate.
“We didn’t run in the same circles (at BHS) — probably because I was too nerdy,” Huling said, explaining that he was in band, while Detlefsen was a track athlete.
They began dating in May 2017. The next year, Huling was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, a chronic inflammatory bowel disease.
“Basically, your immune system attacks your colon,” Huling said. “They don’t know what causes it specifically. There’s no cure per se.”
Huling believes the diagnosis was part of a spiritual wake-up call.
“I didn’t know it at the time, but I think God was trying to get my attention,” he said.
Humbling times
Huling admitted that as an infantryman, he thought of himself as a “barrel-chested fighting machine,” but he found out that he wasn’t as strong or tough as he thought he was.
While taking medication to keep his ulcerative colitis at bay, he became very sick with covid in August 2021. It left him bedridden for approximately a week, followed by another week or so of lethargy.
“I had never been sick like that for so long,” Huling said.
After contracting covid, Huling found that his ulcerative colitis was getting worse as he began experiencing new symptoms. It took a toll on him physically as he lost more than 35 pounds over a three-month period. It also took a toll on him mentally as he was overcome with anxiety, wondering how he was going to function in day-to-day life.
“It was just terrible,” Huling said. “I felt horrible. It was like the stomach flu, except my entire life was the stomach flu.”
Doctors had him try various medications, which had little or no effect.
Huling said he began trying to bargain with God, making promises in exchange for being healed.
“That progressed to, ‘God, I know you can heal me. Please heal me.’ I was just asking Him to heal me and just trying to trust in him,” Huling said.
His condition, however, continued to worsen. Doctors talked of possibly removing his colon. Huling wondered if he was going to live with the the symptoms and the pain forever. He began thinking about mortality.
Huling suffered for approximately a year. He recalled a day in the summer of 2022 when he was on the floor in a fetal position, crying harder than he had ever cried in his life.
He prayed to God, but not to make any bargains or to simply plead for his health to improve. Huling said he told God, “I don’t care if I live. I don’t care if I die. I just want your will to be done. Whatever it is, I want you to be glorified through my life — through healing me or through my death and the way it will affect people. I just want your will to be done. I trust you. I love you.”
The following week, Huling began feeling better. His body responded to a new medication that Huling said had like a 20-percent chance of working.
“I started getting my life back,” he said.
He had a colonoscopy done in July 2022. It revealed nothing amiss. He didn’t have the presence of polyps.
Two weeks later, following Huling went to his doctor to discuss the results of biopsies done during his colonoscopy. After a long pause, the doctor told him, “So, your biopsies reveal you are in full, pathological remission, which essentially means there’s no sign of disease anywhere.”
Serving God and First Church
For years, Huling lived life as he was his own master, but he has now re-established a relationship with God, realizing it is He who is in charge.
“God has a wonderful way of humbling people,” Huling said. “He definitely humbled me, for sure. He took me back down to where I needed to be, which I am so grateful for.”
Huling began attending church regularly again in the summer of 2022. It was for his benefit, of course, but Huling also started believing that his attendance could possibly benefit others.
“It’s not just about going and getting something from going to church, like, ‘God, what are you going to give to me today?’ It was also, ‘I have a testimony to share.’ You never know the impact of the words you say to someone and what they’ll mean to someone,” Huling said.
In early 2023, he was approached by Mike Moore and Josh Reinken about interviewing for First Church’s position of youth and families minister. Reinken, who held the position at that time, was preparing to step into the role of lead pastor for the retiring Moore. Huling wondered if this was the reason why God healed him.
“The more I talked to them, and the more I prayed about it over the next few months, the more it was kind of confirmation for me,” Huling said. “I think this is the direction (God’s) leading me to go.”
Huling has been in his new role for more than two months, describing the experience so far as “absolutely wonderful.”
“I can’t tell you how grateful and how awesome it has been to serve with these kids,” he said.
Huling believes in an expression he heard from Reinken: “Love over time is what changes lives.” He approaches his role with that in mind. He’ll have a smile on his face, be ready to offer advice and/or hugs as needed and offer his full support no matter what.
In other words, he wants the youth to experience what he did when he was their age.
“I want to be there for them as much as Josh was there for me and Pastor Mike was there for me,” Huling said, adding, “That is kind of the opportunity I’m most excited about. To be there. To be able to see them go from being these crazy kids to whatever they may become in the future. I’m really excited to see how that’s going to go.”
Huling said one of the things he likes about the Army is that it helps people get better. He hopes that he can do his part to help the church’s young people get better.
“Every kid is so different,” he said. “They’re like flowers. They’re so different and so beautiful in their own way. They have so much potential and so much room to just grow and thrive if given the right circumstances and given the right tools.”
Though he hasn’t been in the role long, Huling said he has already planned a lot of events.
“I’m a worker. I like doing stuff,” he said.
However, he admitted that he’s probably been trying to do too much too soon. Huling said, “Josh has just been kind of that small voice in my ear, like, ‘You don’t have to do that much. You can even slow down if you want to.”
You can understand the enthusiasm, however. Huling’s life is ascending from its lowest point, moving away from an illness and its effects to serving God and helping to bring about His will at the church he grew up in.
Huling never imagined his life turning out the way it has, but it was God’s will. He’s now come to embrace that will and allow God to lead him wherever he needs to be.
“My faith has changed so much in the past year,” Huling said. “It’s been a wild ride, for sure.”
