#BeingHuman. #OnTheRoadAgain. Remembering our spiritual family who endure real warfare, civil and hybrid and full-scale, rather than euphemistic conflicts and situations, as we try to keep Thanksgiving amid the thunder of explosions and sirens, and as we attempt to give thanks to the Lord.
Our human journey runs through valleys and over peaks, in patterns of joy and sorrow, echoing the old wisdom of Ecclesiastes: “To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1, NKJV).
Those seasons look different across our divided globe and our divided Global Church. Some know the warmth of fellowship around a laden table, where the Psalmist’s words ring true: “You prepare a table before me” (Psalm 23:5, NKJV). In another reality, blast waves shatter both furniture and lives, while our hearts cry out: “My eyes fail with tears, my heart is troubled” (Lamentations 2:11, NKJV).
What does it mean to give thanks when some feast while others go hungry? How can gratitude live alongside such inequity? How do we hold the prophet Isaiah’s vision of beating “swords into plowshares” (Isaiah 2:4, NKJV) together with missiles turning plowshares back into weapons? Did he foresee this modern paradox, where a missile turns farmland into a battlefield? Perhaps these questions are themselves acts of faithful wrestling, like Jacob at the Jabbok (Genesis 32:22–32), refusing to let go until we find a blessing.
Dear friends and partners in peaceful lands, celebrate freely and fully. Your joy matters too. Embrace it without shame and do not let guilt shadow your celebrations, because your moments of joy with family are sacred and your gratitude for peace in your own country is itself a form of witness. As James writes, “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above” (James 1:17, NKJV).
When your children laugh and play, remember the particular blessing Jesus gave to children (Matthew 19:14). Watch your children and your parents and your brothers and sisters unwrap their presents, and cherish that joy. Your peaceful celebration testifies to God’s grace, and your moments of peace speak hope into our darkness. Your peace is a blessing to steward rather than a privilege to feel guilty about.
Divine providence has made us one family, and we are deeply thankful that He has woven your threads into the fabric of our lives, some of you since 2014 and the first russian aggression, and some since 2022 and the full-scale one. With Paul we say, “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you” (Philippians 1:3, NKJV). Your presence in our story, even from a distance, strengthens us, and you hold up our arms as Aaron and Hur held up Moses (Exodus 17:12). We remain bound together in the body of Christ, where “if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it” (1 Corinthians 12:26, NKJV).
Where does God walk in our fractured reality, and how do we trace the divine footprints across these divided worlds? Through peaceful homes where children delight in gifts, and through bomb shelters where children learn how to survive. At tables groaning with abundance, and over shared crusts in front-line trenches. In the joy of unwrapping a present, and in the skill of a small child who has learned the air-raid signals and can name the different explosions by their sound. These parallel truths of peace and war live together in our collective heart, and yet how can one heart truly hold such opposing realities, the valley of death and the green pastures at once?
Even as missiles and kamikaze drones fall, we hold to the defiant faith of the prophet Habakkuk: “Though the fig tree may not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines … yet I will rejoice in the Lord” (Habakkuk 3:17–18, NKJV). In both our worlds the scarlet thread of God’s redemption keeps running through history, binding our stories together in ways we may not fully understand until the day we see “the morning stars sang together” (Job 38:7, NKJV) in a new heaven and a new earth.
What calls us forward at a time like this is stubborn hope rather than resignation to the dark, and the prophetic vision of Isaiah rather than despair: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light” (Isaiah 9:2, NKJV). Until then we remain grateful for one another, we for you beneath peaceful skies and you for us beneath the skies of russia’s mills of death. Until then we remain bound together in this strange fabric of suffering and hope, of darkness and light, holding fast to the promise that “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (John 1:5, NKJV).
Peace be with you, and keep your children away from war. Taras D., Ukraine
1009th day of the ongoing full-scale russian war
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