From Ira Kapitonova in Kyiv (Day 569):
I will praise you with an upright heart, when I learn your righteous rules.
Psalm 119:7
Sometimes, when I think about this war, I ask God not how long it will last but how deep it will run. Pretty deep…
This morning, when I was checking my students’ journals, I was caught off guard. I usually give them some silly writing prompts, which is why their responses are even more striking. Like a sentence in a story about two talking pigs, “And then one pig started talking about the war, and both pigs started crying.” The story gets brighter after it, yet you see how deep this wound is.
Or it can be another student who writes that if a fairy gave them one wish, they would ask that Putin would have a change of heart and start trusting God so that Ukraine could have freedom.
It took me a while to compose myself after reading those. Even when someone’s pain is not apparent, it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
Voice of Ukraine 
One response to “9/16/2023 – Sometimes, when I think about this war, I ask God not how long it will last but how deep it will run. Pretty deep…”
Psalm 10 Why standest thou afar off, O Lord? why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble? The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor: let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined. For the wicked boasteth of his heart’s desire, and blesseth the covetous, whom the Lord abhorreth. The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts. His ways are always grievous; thy judgments are far above out of his sight: as for all his enemies, he puffeth at them. He hath said in his heart, “I shall not be moved: for I shall never be in adversity.” His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud: under his tongue is mischief and vanity. He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages: in the secret places doth he murder the innocent: his eyes are privily set against the poor. He lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den: he lieth in wait to catch the poor: he doth catch the poor, when he draweth him into his net. He croucheth, and humbleth himself, that the poor may fall by his strong ones.
He hath said in his heart, “God hath forgotten: he hideth his face; he will never see it.”
Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up thine hand: forget not the humble. Wherefore doth the wicked contemn God? he hath said in his heart, “Thou wilt not require it.”
Thou hast seen it; for thou beholdest mischief and spite, to requite it with thy hand: the poor committeth himself unto thee; thou art the helper of the fatherless. Break thou the arm of the wicked and the evil man: seek out his wickedness till thou find none. The Lord is King for ever and ever: the heathen are perished out of his land. Lord, thou hast heard the desire of the humble: thou wilt prepare their heart, thou wilt cause thine ear to hear: To judge the fatherless and the oppressed, that the man of the earth may no more oppress.
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