But Also: Live
The news coming out of Ukraine right now is spurring many of us to pray and give. And it should.
The vast majority of us cannot do anything else. We can’t take up arms. We can’t help refugees across the border to safety. We can’t necessarily stand before our governments and ask them to get involved (maybe some of us can, but I’m pretty sure I’m not going to go out demonstrating with five kids in tow).
We can pray, and we can give. And some of us are supplementing that with oversized doses of worry and long hours trolling the internet trying to find all the news we can because fore-warned is fore-armed…or something like that. We want to stand with the people of Ukraine, but we also want to be prepared because the what if’s loom large.
There are a gazillion blog posts out there right now that will help you pray and give and be prepared (and probably a couple that will remind us not to worry). Since all of those options are covered, today, I want us to consider one more response we can have to the crisis in Ukraine: we can live.
This morning, I sat in my oversized arm chair and drank my coffee and read my Bible, a blanket and a cat on my lap, my children sleeping in safety in the next room. Yesterday afternoon, I wrote in the sunshine, the heat warming my hair, the giggles and shrieks of the kids on the trampoline next door wrapping around my heart like a hug.
How many of our Ukrainian brothers and sisters wish that they could trade places with me, with that they could go back to just a few weeks ago when the comfort and quiet of home could be taken for granted? How many are dreaming right now of what we assume to be normal? How many would give anything to be in a place of safety and security?
So pray and give…but also, live. Let your life become a prayer for the Ukrainian people right now.
Kiss your husband, and thank God that he is with you and not staying behind to protect your home land—and pray for the wives who had to kiss their husbands goodbye instead of just good morning.
Sit and have coffee with your friends, look into their faces, hug them as they leave your home to go back to theirs—and pray for the Ukrainians who are now far away from their loved ones, who will have to build a new community, who hope they can find new friends and one day be reunited with old ones.
Teach your children their math lessons, correct their spelling (and their atrocious handwriting), resist the urge to be frustrated by their uncalled for meltdowns over something they could do easily if they would just stop freaking out—and pray for the children whose schooling has been disrupted by this war…and whose meltdowns are completely called for. Hug your kids a little bit closer.
Make buttermilk pancakes and go to the grocery store for more milk (even though you just went yesterday) because you can, and many cannot.
Read a book in the bathtub.
Take a walk in your neighborhood.
Listen to the sound of wind chimes and safety.
Make lemonade and put in a couple sprigs of mint to be fancy.
Put together a ginormous pot of soup. Build something with Legos (or tell your kid that what he made is a masterpiece of unparalleled genius). Create something that adds a little more beauty to the world.
Live. Live. Because you can.
Live as a celebration and a prayer and a remembrance. Live because we would want those in Ukraine to do that for us if we were in their shoes. We would want them to remind us of the answer to Miracle Max’s question in The Princess Bride: what do you got here that’s worth living for?
What have we got here? So much. So very much. True love—for our families and our friends and our neighborhoods and our homes and our world. True love even for those in Ukraine whom we have never met and probably will never meet.
They are fighting for their lives and their homes and their freedom right now. Let’s not dishonor them in our tepid living. Pray and give…but also: live. They know what we have here that’s worth living for. Do we?
