From Ira Kapitonova in Kyiv (Day 527):
I cry aloud to God, aloud to God,
and he will hear me.
Psalm 77:1
I read several stories today shared by an educational activist. All of the accounts come from Kyiv, and all of them give me chills:
— a boy who had to receive a “special needs” placement because he gets a panic attack if a door is closed. He got it from spending too much time in a bomb shelter in his hometown. So the teachers teach him with the doors wide open at all times.
— a boy who kept his cell phone in his hands at all times and would get a panic attack if he put it down. His father was part of a military group fighting in Bakhmut, out of range for a while, so the boy was afraid he would miss his dad’s phone call, so he kept checking his phone and calling his mom to double-check.
— kids were invited to spend ten days in Sweden, but the sponsors were worried because a couple of kids were asleep for a few days in a row, even missing their meals. It was the first time in a long while that the kids felt safe and could allow themselves to relax and have a good sleep.
— a school principal was proudly showing their bomb shelter to a foreign reporter — armored doors, food and water supply, desks, and chairs. “Isn’t it nice?” asks the school principal. “No, this is horrible,” says the reporter breaking into tears.
Only the Lord can bring us healing.
You are the God who works wonders;
you have made known your might among the peoples.
Psalm 77:14
Voice of Ukraine 
3 responses to “8/4/2023 – The scars of war”
Our Savior Jesus is not a figure in a white robe, untouchable and distant. He is a man of sorrows, who knows everyday life and death. He is also God Almighty, able to bear your sorrows, fears, anger, when any human friend could not deal.
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J.R.R.Tolkien writes to his son, April 30, 1944
I sometimes feel appalled at the thought of the sum total of human misery all over the world at the present moment: the millions parted, fretting, wasting in unprofitable days – quite apart from torture, pain, death, bereavement, injustice. If anguish were visible, almost the whole of this benighted planet would be enveloped in a dense dark vapour, shrouded from the amazed vision of the heavens! And the products of it all will be mainly evil – historically considered. But the historical version is, of course, not the only one. All things and deeds have a value in themselves, apart from their ‘causes’ and ‘effects’. No man can estimate what is really happening at the present sub specie aeternitatis. All we do know, and that to a large extent by direct experience, is that evil labours with vast power and perpetual success – in vain: preparing always only the soil for unexpected good to sprout in. So it is in general, and so it is in our own lives.
… But there is still some hope that things may be better for us, even on the temporal plane, in the mercy of God. And though we need all our natural human courage and guts (the vast sum of human courage and endurance is stupendous, isn’t it?) and all our religious faith to face the evil that may befall us (as it befalls others, if God wills) still we may pray and hope. I do.
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O, Lord, You hear the cry of Your people. Grant victory and peace for Ukraine!
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