Marking 1 Year of Praying for Ukraine

Dear Friends,

Tomorrow will mark one year of the same urgent prayer request: the war in Ukraine. That’s a long time. It almost seems like we should have ordered a batch of Connection Cards with that prayer request pre-printed on the back.

In some sense, the answer to those prayers that we’re looking for is peace. God, grant us the wisdom to see the as-yet invisible solution to a war that has settled into a brutal stasis. And yet here we are, marking the first anniversary of conflict. This is not the first war, nor will it be the last, in which God doesn’t seem to be moving quickly to tip the balance of power to end the fight.

And yet, as surely as peace has not been reached, surely God must be moving, loving, consoling, and caring for his people — on both sides, really. These are, in many cases, Christians fighting Christians. So, when we pray for the war in Ukraine, we pray not just for the geopolitical battle — but for the individuals who have a relationship with God, our brothers and sisters whom God loves. God, after all, is a lover of souls, not nation states.

So, we’ll keep praying, and as we do so, we’ll pray not just for God to help end the war, but for God to love and care for all those individuals whose lives and hopes and dreams are still burning brightly or have been shattered or who find themselves somewhere in between.

In Christ,
Fr. Andrew