Evidence of God's Love

I have nothing new to add to what anyone else is saying. Like most of my friends, I watch the headlines, scroll past pictures in my newsfeed, and just don't know what to do besides pray. I'v never been to Ukraine, but I have people there whom I love. Several of her children have passed through my classroom or fallen asleep in my arms as I babysat. When I tell the story of seeing the Northern Lights from an airplane over the Atlantic, I usually tell them how the two Ukrainian kids in the seat next to me followed me to the galley window while their parents slept - I had to lift up the little girl to help her see - and despite our language barrier, we enjoyed that most beautiful phenomenon together. 

Then there are all the people whom I love in Russia. Several of her children have also passed through my classroom, laughed with me sipping tea on my couch, patiently taught me the Cyrillic alphabet before I moved to Kazakhstan, and generally helped me appreciate the beauty to be found in that massive country. As a 10-year-old girl, I remember staring up at the colorful walls of the Winter Palace and belting out Anastasia songs as we crossed the Neva river. If it hadn't been for Covid, I would've gotten to revisit those museums with a new appreciation in the Spring of 2020, and now I wonder if I ever will.

I'm angry and grieved and disheartened and struggling to find my own stance. The Ukrainian people deserve to be the deciders of their own government and freedoms. Scripture is clear that you cannot walk all over victims because he will fight on their behalf. Yet, I also know what it's like to love the aggressor. Growing up in a country whose heritage was not only being on the losing side of both world wars, but also to be the birthplace of both men who started them, I wrestled with the question of why God would ever want to extend salvation to an Austrian. It was through my own deep-rooted passion for the people that God convinced me he still had love for these people. So, even though I hurt, I stand convinced that He loves Ukrainians and Russians because he has put a love for both into believers everywhere. May my own love grow.

"The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater" - J.R.R. Tolkien

a gift from a Ukrainian colleague