Ukraine on my mind
Martha Olawale
Spring is here and as I was going through the plans for my landscape, deciding the flowers I wanted and where I wanted them placed, I could not help but take a pause to acknowledge the burden millions of people in Ukraine face. War is at their doorstep, and they did not call for it. For a nation under siege, and with all they are contending with, if they can just go to bed in their homes without the fear of being killed, they will be grateful.
I am burdened by the wickedness of man to man and grieved by the pain of Ukraine. No one deserves to be upended from their home and thrown into a future of oblivion. The basic tenet of life demands a simple acknowledgment of the right of others to live in peace in an already overwhelming world.
The imperfections of this world I call home lead me closer to the cross of Christ and remind me of my longing to spend eternity with Him. The imperfections ring through the tears of the child clinging to his mother because he was separated from his father; it echoes through the weakness of the eighty-year-old woman walking miles to flee a place she calls home. My spirit is burdened by the perplexity of a president whose life is on the line for his country. And I am overwhelmed by the pain of a mother who is not sure she’ll see her son again and the newlywed who is not sure she’ll soon be widowed.
The heart of man is indeed desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9) and the machinations ungodly. God gave us the will to choose between good or evil, right, or wrong, and what I see playing out in Ukraine is nothing short of evil. To God, just one life is worth more than all the lands of any nation and there is simply no justification to destroy the lives of people in the pursuit of power.
I share the heart of my father and I pray that God will soothe the pain of Ukraine. I pray that the weak regain strength; the hope of the hopeless be restored; the burden of the heavy-laden be lightened; the desolate find rest and peace. I pray that the tears of the nation are wiped away and their glory restored.
