No Peace for my Family and Me

Image by Alexandra_Koch on Pixabay

There is no peace for me and my family.

Shelling screams in our ears.

Air raid sirens blare.

They invade our private space.

Our beautiful Ukraine is being laid to waste.

Our children look into our eyes. They cry. They ask, “Why?”

We don’t know what answer to give.

Do we say, “Because Putin wants us to have anger in our hearts?

He wants his glorious Russia to come back like in Stalin’s day.”

Words fail to explain why so many of us will be slain.

When will hope in our hearts live again?

We want to continue to be free.

We have a right to our sovereignty.

How many more will have to die before this war ends?
How long before we see our family and friends?

We will be thankful for sleeping bags on which our children can lay their weary heads.

They say if a Third World War happens the living will envy the dead.

This build-up of nuclear weapons is insanity.
Is this the cost we pay for being free?

We understand that there will always be people like Putin.

We believe we have to defend ourselves.
But we ask, “When will the beginning of war move us towards its end?

When will we sit down together brother to brother, a friend with a friend?
When can we go back to see flowers bloom again?”

If my children and I could just wash up and feel clean.

But we can’t because Putin is mean.

We have no heating to keep warm in winter’s cold.
There is no comfort for both young and old.

Our apartment building was destroyed by bombs raining down from the sky..

There is no water to cook.

There are no lights we can turn on.

We have no choice but to flee.

It’s not safe here anymore.
We are being forced from the homes in which we live.
How can anyone say we need to forgive?
Maybe that will come some distant day.
But right now we just want Russian forces to go away.

In the darkness, it’s hard to see a light, any hope for my family and me.

If we could take some time to cry.

But there isn’t time to think.

We must get our children to an underground shelter for food and drink.

We are saddened to see Ukraine so destroyed,

the remains of buildings that once stood tall.

We ask ourselves, “What is the meaning of it all?”

We believe in all this pain, we will see sunflowers bloom again.
They do that every year in spite of a world gripped by fear.

If we shut our eyes we can imagine sunflowers swaying with the wind,

We can feel tiny pieces of peace within.

It’s better than nothing, but there is no peace for us night and day,

We say,

“Putin, leave us alone

Go away!”

I’m a sinner saved by grace teaching others about it.