This post from my dear friend Audra is shared with permission.
I have greatly hesitated in writing this post, and I have a hard time articulating why. One reason is that I feel like it draws attention to my minor inconvenience in a sea of suffering, destruction, death, and loss that all of Ukraine is feeling right now. My whole community, my whole country, is experiencing bitter loss. Another reason is that I am afraid to make myself look spiritual, but I am a broken, sinful person struggling through life to be what God wants me to be.
But I write . . .
In March 2019, I sensed the world was irreversibly changing, and I prayed that God would give me a garden. God answered my prayer and gave me a "garden" that happened to have a house with three bedrooms. This made it possible for our children to each have their own bedroom and for us to work more comfortably at home through times of quarantine. God gave us this house as clearly as if He wrapped it Himself and placed it in my lap; it was so clear to us that it was God's doing. And with the gift He also gave me this verse from Job 1:20b as though it was written on an accompanying card:
"The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised."
With the message of this verse, I accepted His gift to me, this incredibly beautiful spot that filled me with joy.—my beloved happy spot, given to me by God, for a time.
“I did not want to take anything because taking things felt like affirming something would happen. ”
When the February invasion began, my children and I had already been evacuated for three weeks. But I left everything behind, including my husband. I didn't take anything beyond clothes for a typical visit to my parents. I did not want to take anything because taking things felt like affirming something would happen.
Then the invaders came and began attacking homes, some with bombs. As the bombs dropped and people fled, I began thinking of my friends and acquaintances all leaving everything behind just as I had done—leaving homes and businesses and communities they had built as suddenly everyone scattered in all different directions.
Now, a bomb has hit our village, destroying houses. At the top of our street is a crater. The activity center of the village has been damaged, the place where just two months ago my children attended art lessons and I taught English. It feels like my community was destroyed in one second.
In the towns north of us, homes have been invaded. I began to envision soldiers in my own home, going through my personal things, discovering who I am, and eating the preserves our grandma worked so hard to prepare last summer.
Another distinct picture in my head is the village in central Ukraine where my husband’s grandparents lived and fought off the Nazis. Ukraine was ripped apart in World War II, and a monument stands in that village as a tribute to all the men who died in that war. Every time I visited the woods and fields of war, I felt the sense of what went on as the Nazis invaded and the defenders of that village fled. Eventually, the villagers fought back, sweeping the Nazis back east.
“Now I realize that the woods and fields of war have become my woods and fields.”
Now I realize that the woods and fields of war have become my woods and fields, and the lake surrounding my house. My happy place has been invaded, the beloved spot where only two months ago I was sledding down the hill with my children, where we were skating on our pond.
God has been so good to me. Though my husband is still in Ukraine, I am in a safe place with my children. My heart aches at the horrible things people are experiencing, the elderly who cannot leave or who are so stressed by having to leave, and the children suffering trauma.
“Then I held between my hands the 38 chapters of suffering. ”
And then, I return to the verse God gave me: "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised." I had such a clear sense of that verse when I received His gift. So, facing the tragedy, of our situation, I opened the book of Job with my children and read parts of the first chapter to explain the story. Then I held between my hands the 38 chapters of suffering. Those chapters are long and hard. In the end, we read how God restored.
We trust our "restoring" God, our Redeemer.
Lord have mercy on Ukraine!
Living With Eternal Intentionality®
How do you respond when you read Audra’s story? What situation in your own life allows you to identify with her loss, her suffering, and the suffering of those she loves?
