Did Ukraine’s government ask for this?

A woman recently told me that she was confused about the truth, that she doesn’t know what to believe. Someone in a Bible study told her that Ukraine’s government asked for this war, because of their corruption.

I’m here to tell you the truth. Because I was there. Because my parents and brother and sister and nephew are still there. Because we are LIVING this hell every day.

Don’t believe propaganda.

Of course, there is corruption. Can the citizen of ANY country say there is NO corruption in their government? Can the citizen of the United States say there is no corruption? I don’t know any government that isn’t corrupt on some level.

What I can say from having LIVED in and out of Ukraine for over 20 years: we have been fighting a battle against corruption since we first gained freedom from the Soviet Union. There have been ups and downs, but the PEOPLE of Ukraine, including many dedicated public servants, have been making strides to free their nation from corruption, just like many people and public servants in the US fight again corruption here.

Did Ukraine ask for this war? Is Russia “sent by God” to cleanse a nation?

Let me ask this: because there IS corruption in the US government, are we asking another country to come and rape, torture and murder American children? Are we asking for American sons, brothers, husbands, fathers and grandfathers to fight on OUR territory for our personal freedom and our safety, while American women, children and elderly flee to unknown nations, just so they escape alive?

I could tell you secondhand stories from Ukraine that I believe to be true. Stories about an 11-year old girl who was gang raped and slit open across the abdomen, which finally killed her. Stories of groups of women and children who were sent to “internment camps”, forced to strip completely, while soldiers searched every crevice of their naked bodies – with a single pair of gloves. Stories of men lying dead in the streets of their neighborhood, hands tied behind their backs, shot in the back of the head.

I could tell you those stories.

But maybe you would say I believe propaganda. I’m just blinded by the “new world order” and believing lies.

OR I could tell you MY stories. The horrors and tragedies I have personally experienced or watched my loved ones and friends experience.

So THIS is the truth…not from the news or social media. These are MY STORIES, my personal experiences of living through the hell of war and all its evils. And these are just scraping the surface of what I could tell you.

The truth is:

I had to tell my kids to pack their favorite toys into a grocery bag as fast as they could, knowing it might be all they would see of their home and belongings again.

I watched my kids hug their grandpa goodbye, as I wondered if he would survive to see us all again.

I sat in a line for 21 hours to evacuate my family from our home, all the while receiving personal pictures and videos from friends who were watching missiles fly around them and hit residential buildings. We evacuated along with millions of other people – mostly moms, children and elderly. I personally watched thousands fleeing their country on foot, in freezing cold, with only a small suitcase to their name.

My 8-year old daughter threw up in the cramped car as we waited overnight, and then she was forced to poop on the side of the road, amidst refuse from thousands of other people just trying to get to safety.

I watched countless women and children kissing their husbands, brothers, fathers and grandfathers goodbye, as they sought safety and the men stayed behind to defend their freedom.

My husband’s friend sent him a photo of her private house – rubble after the initial attacks on Kyiv.

I met a woman and her two children in a 300-bed temporary shelter for Ukrainians in a school gym. She left her husband and their father behind when a plane was shot down next to their home.

My friends – a mama and two kids – walked over 20 miles in the freezing cold to the Polish border and then turned around because she was afraid they’d be killed in the panicked confusion at the border.

My dad sent us pictures of an explosion he saw, heard and felt from his own home – “Grandpa and Grandma’s house,” where my kids have grown up playing and spending holidays.

My friend sent me a personal photo of a missile head in her aunt’s back yard.

My 80-year old adopted grandmother was forced to leave the home where she raised and then buried her two sons and her husband – the home where she planned to live out her life.

My friends almost starved to death in a bomb shelter – a mother and 12 kids – while a man trying to free them was shot to death.

My kids’ friends sent their dad off to war. The body armor and helmet he wears into war was in my entryway, while we figured out how to get it to Ukraine.

My nephew was born into a war-torn country. The first nephew I was ever going to be able to live near, raise my kids with – he’s over a month old and I have never held him.

My friends sent me a video of a town’s wreckage in eastern Ukraine. One week before, they had voluntarily brought food and aid to the civilian population. In that week, the Ukrainian town was attacked and half the population was dead.

My friend called me from Ukraine just after 30 bombs were dropped on her home city. She was devastated.

My husband and I have to decide, like millions of others – do we take our children home to give them back their life and familiarity, knowing they’ll be torn from their beds to the sound of air raid sirens and might hear missile explosions in their home city? Do we hope our city stays safe so they can live in their own house, sleep in their own beds? Or do we break their hearts and hope and tell them we can’t go home – not yet.

Every day I wake up and check to make sure my home city is still there, and my parents and brother and sister and nephew are still alive.

THAT IS THE TRUTH.

I didn’t ask for this. We didn’t ask for this. Ukraine did not ask for this.

Those of us who call on God and want to reflect the love of Christ in a broken world…may I be so bold as to ask this question:

What reflects the love of Christ more truly: to claim that a nation deserved to be cleansed by war, or to mourn the sorrow, tragedy and death of people all over a country? To cry out and grieve for children who are dying, mothers who are suffering, and men who are being tortured and dying to save their families, communities and nation?

Let us reflect love. Let us reflect the heart of Christ. He didn’t care what we deserved, didn’t refuse the cross becase we in our sin had asked for judgment. He died. He showed mercy and compassion and love.

Let us reflect love.

Let us love Ukraine’s people.