Voice of Ukraine

From: Taras M. Dyatlik — “That your faith may not fail…” (Luke 22:31-32; John 21:15-19).

Contemplation 1.

I step into Advent the fourth time after 1376 days of Russia’s inhuman war. Watching empires trade Ukraine like property – our land, our mineral resources, our people treated as merchandise because business with Russia matters more than the lives of victims – I am challenged with the question: Is hope still reasonable? Will Christ bring justice to my nation? I do not ask abstractly. I ask with funerals and shelling in the background: Will this cherry night end? Is dawn still possible?

Our family buried our brother Andriy last year. He is now part of the cloud of witnesses among our six family members killed by Russians, including my nephew Sashko, shot by pro-Russian snipers on Maidan in February 2014. Five more relatives are at the front as I write. So the question of whether my faith fails is not theoretical. What if my faith fails? It is the question I personally carry to the text:

“Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.” (Luke 22:31-32)

Jesus speaks to Peter hours before betrayal and crucifixion. He does not say, “Stay strong, everything will be fine.” He says, “You will break. You will deny Me. But I have already prayed for you.”

Contemplation 2.

I remember helping my grandfather sift grain as a boy. It was rougher than I expected – the sieve shaking hard, grain beaten and tossed, chaff flying everywhere. What remained looked bare and small. I think of that picture now, looking at Ukraine, looking at where the so-called Christian democratic world is going. Sifting is not gentle. It is harsh, stripping. Everything that does not belong gets shaken loose. What remains has been through something.

Jesus does not promise Peter protection from sifting. He promises something else: that after the sifting, grain will remain. Naked, vulnerable, small – but authentic.

I sometimes imagine that genuine faith is untouched faith. That the faithful Evangelical stands firm, unbroken, without cracks or doubts. But Scripture tells a different story. The faith that lasts is not faith that avoids suffering. It is faith that went through fire and survived – even through failure. Not armor I hide behind, but honesty I live from.

Peter (one of Christ’s closest disciples) was vulnerable despite being close to God in the flesh. He was still afraid. He still broke. He wept bitterly. War has stripped me bare, too. I do not pretend I have everything under control. Perhaps you recognize this, wherever you are reading: “My faith is not what it was. I cannot pray as I once did. I do not feel God as I once did.”

I remind myself again and again: this does not mean my faith has disappeared. It means my faith is being sifted. The chaff is flying. But the grain – it is still there, even when I do not see it. God does not expect from me faith untouched by war, by losses, by postponed grief. He looks for faith that honestly faces the darkness – and still holds on.

Contemplation 3.

“But I have prayed for you.” Notice the tense of the verb. Not “I will pray” if you fall. Not “I will pray” when you repent. “I have prayed” – before breaking, before collapse, before failure. Christ’s prayer precedes my falling. He knows my weakness better than I know myself – and loves me no less. He enters my brokenness not to erase it, but to be present within it.

When I crossed back into Ukraine from Moldova on February 25, 2022, I knew nothing of what was ahead. The war was two days old. Everyone I loved was still breathing. Andriy was alive. The others were alive. I did not know our family would bury six of them as of today. I did not know the shape the following years would take. At that border crossing, grief was still abstract. Loss was still a word. I thought my faith was strong enough.

That night, Peter was convinced of his own strength: “Lord, I am ready to go with You, both to prison and to death!” But fear already broke him – maybe pride, maybe his inability to accept that the Messiah had to suffer. Hours later, by a charcoal fire, before a servant girl, he said: “I do not know the Man.” When the rooster crowed, Christ turned and looked at Peter. That look broke him completely.

How many of us have lived something similar? I thought my faith was strong. Then came news that brought me to my knees – not in prayer, but from the blow. I carry a broken heart. Broken by loss. Broken by injustice. Broken by the world not being what it should be, by Christian civilization and global Evangelicals not reacting to this war the way they should. Broken by myself not being who I wanted to be. And I still cry: “Where are You, God? Why?”

But Christ was already praying for me – before I fell, before I asked, before I knew I needed it. My faith holds not by my strength but by His intercession. “He always lives to make intercession for them,” writes the author of Hebrews. My prayer may feel weak. I may barely be holding on. Unbroken Evangelicals probably do not like it, I know. But Christ prays for me – and His prayer does not weaken. God is not afraid of my brokenness. He enters it. And His prayer is a promise: what is broken will be restored. Not today, perhaps. But in His time – certainly.

Contemplation 4.

“And when you have returned to Me…” Christ does not say “if.” He says, “When.” He knows Peter will break – and knows Peter will return. Breaking is not the end of the story.

But between Peter’s failure and his restoration lay the darkest days in history. Friday’s cross. Saturday’s silence. For Peter, this was the time when everything ended. He watched the One he loved die. He carried the guilt of failure. He did not know resurrection was coming. He sat in darkness – broken, guilty, hopeless.

I often read the Gospels knowing the ending. Peter did not know. And I live on that Saturday. Between funerals and resurrection. Between pain and healing. Between loss and restoration. I know God promised victory – but I do not yet see it.

After resurrection, Christ finds Peter where everything began – by the sea, with fishing nets. Peter had returned to his old life. Perhaps he thought his failure had finished everything. And there, by a charcoal fire (the same detail), Jesus asks three times: “Do you love Me?” Three denials, three questions. Each question opens a door that had slammed shut. Jesus does not heal Peter in a neutral place. He takes him back to the fire. To the fire that reminded him of failure. Why? Because that is where the wound lives. And that is where it can heal. I am not healed by avoiding the place where I broke. I am healed when someone meets me there.

What if the Church were not a place of answers but of presence? Where grief carries no shame. Where doubt meets no condemnation. Where the fallen find not lectures but a hand. No rush to resolution. No “everything will be fine.” No pressure to forgive Russians while they kill, rape, destroy, ruin, and torture. Only space – to grieve, to rage, to sit in rubble. And somewhere in that space, not loud, not demanding, a quiet question: “Do you love Me?”

Contemplation 5.

“…strengthen your brethren.” Christ does not say: “When you return – rest, withdraw, heal yourself first.” He says, “Strengthen your brethren.” The one who broke, stumbled, and was lifted receives an immediate mission to support others. Not the one who never failed. Not the one who endured without cracks. But the one who passed through darkness and survived it.

Who can better support someone in darkness than one who walked through it? Who can better understand the doubts of a crippled Evangelical, like me, than one who doubted? Who can better embrace the grieving than one who knows the salty taste of tears? I do not strengthen my brethren because I am strong. I strengthen them because I know my dark weakness – and know the One who prays for me.

My wounds are not a disqualification from ministry. They are my qualifications. Healing flows from Christ’s wounds. And through my wounds, through my cracks, His light reaches others. The church in Ukraine is passing through fire. And precisely for this reason, we can carry hope to others – not despite our wounds, but through them. To say to the global Church and to a watching world: “I have been in thick darkness. I have fallen, while you perhaps remained strong and unbroken. But there is a Light that darkness has not overcome.”

Contemplation 6.

Advent meets me where Peter sat – in the silence between falling and rising, between denial and restoration. That long, silent Saturday when he did not know the end of the story. I know that place. I live in it. Vulnerable, broken, not yet whole. Waiting for a dawn I cannot see.

But Advent today says: this is precisely where faith begins. Not in certainty – in honest darkness. I light candles not because the night is over, but because the night is not the end. God came once to a broken world. Not to a world where everything was sorted out. He came into the cold. Into a stable. To a people under occupation. He came as a child – the most vulnerable form of human existence. He knows the darkness from inside and on the cross. And He will come again – even if I hardly believe it now.

While I wait, Christ does what He did for Peter: He prays for me. Before I fall, before I rise, before I know what I need — He intercedes. “That your faith may not fail.” It is not a command for me to be strong. It is a promise that He is strong. The grain that passes through the sifting will remain. What is authentic will definitely survive.

Waiting is not a weakness. Prophets died without seeing what was promised. Simeon waited his whole life – and finally, finally saw. Advent sanctifies my waiting. Advent holds space for the “not yet.”

So I light candles. One by one. Small flames that do not cancel the night but are witnesses to the Light that is coming. I am wounded – and therefore I can carry light to others. I am broken – and Christ prays for me. I am waiting – and my waiting is not empty and shameful.

The Ukrainian night is long. But it is not eternal. Morning will come – and no so-called Christian empire will be able to trade it back to night. “When you return” – not “if.” Peace be with you, and keep your children away from war. Our Mission has not changed.

Taras D, Ukraine.