IN THE SHADOW OF HIS WINGS

GLOBAL VOICES

In the Shadow of His Wings

Cheryl Warner

Following the February 24 Russian invasion of Ukraine, we watched with horror from afar. Irpin, our home for the past four years, was on the front line, fighting to keep Russian troops from reaching Kyiv. The Ukrainian resistance was successful, but the price was high. By the time Russian forces withdrew, 71 percent of the buildings in Irpin were damaged, with a third of those completely destroyed. Our beautiful, thriving city in the forest lay in heaps of rubble. Most residents had fled.

The women in my Bible study were dispersed around the world: Poland, Sweden, Australia, the UK, western Ukraine, and I was in the U.S. We continued meeting online and turned to the psalms for comfort. David the warrior, hiding from Saul in a cave, voiced a prayer that we could echo:

Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me, for in you my soul takes refuge.

I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed. (Psalm 57:1, NIV)

As refugees, these women found places of physical safety, but our souls were battered, stunned, wounded by the disruption and terror. Other friends didn’t leave. I texted with people hiding underground in bomb shelters in Irpin, Bucha and Kharkiv. As God brought people to mind, I would send a message and hear another story of danger or deliverance.

David goes on, “I cry out to God Most High, to God, who fulfills his purpose for me. He sends from heaven and saves me, rebuking those who hotly pursue me; God sends his love and his faithfulness.” (57:2-3) What could God’s purposes be for Ukraine? For Russia? For us? We didn’t know—his ways are not our ways—but we trusted that his love and faithfulness would not fail us.

As the war drags on, it’s hard to sleep. “On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night.” (63:6, NIV) I also think of people sheltering in basements in Ukraine, their sleep disrupted by the sounds of sirens, shelling, children crying. On those sleepless nights, shelter for the soul is found in the shadow of his wings. It is quiet there, with space to think, to pray, to draw close and feel his heartbeat. That place of rest comes with an invitation to repent and trust. “In repentance and rest is your salvation. In quietness and trust is your strength.” (Isaiah 30:15, NIV)

God, forgive me for seeking security anywhere else. You alone are my hiding my place.

SUFFERING

Questions naturally come up in our small group. Why was my friend’s home spared and mine was bombed? How could God let this happen? Will I ever be able to go home? Does God really love me?

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:35-39, NIV)

Under his wings, his love surrounds us and holds us close. Because we are in Christ, united with him, as Dane Ortlund explains, “Nothing can touch you that does not touch him. To get to you, every pain, every assault, every disappointment has to go through him. You are shielded by invincible love. He himself feels your anguish even more deeply than you do, because you’re one with him; and he mediates everything hard in your life through his love for you, because you’re one with him.” Ortlund continues, “Your suffering does not define you. His does. You have endured pain involuntarily. He has endured pain voluntarily, for you. Your pain is meant to push you to flee to him, where he endured what you deserve.” (How Does God Change Us? Crossway, 2021, pages 36, 43)

LAMENT

Russian soldiers occupied our part of town and were living in our home in March. We lost contact with our landlady, Tamara, during that time and knew she had remained in our house and declined an opportunity to evacuate with people staying at Mission Eurasia across the street. We feared the worst. We asked our friend Roman to check on her, and he texted back that he couldn’t—that area was occupied, he would be shot if he went there. I imagined combat boots and guns where we usually keep guest slippers and Bibles.

Weeks later, after Russian troops left Irpin, we learned that Tamara was alive and well. Thank God! She told us she had been sheltering in our basement with a neighbor and a dog when the Russian soldiers came, but they did not hurt her. They told her to leave, sparing her life. Others were not so fortunate.

Mykola and Vasyl (two of the pastors who visited College Church in February) and Roman visited Tamara and sent us a video of the damage. Our house fared better than many surrounding us that were destroyed and burned, including the Mission Eurasia building. Our windows were all blown out from the impact of bombs falling nearby, the fence was knocked down, tank tracks marred the garden, and some personal possessions were stolen or damaged (but not Charley’s library of theological books!). Yet the house still stands. Windows were replaced in July, and Tamara has been restoring order.

Much worse than the loss of property is the loss of life. The BBC reported atrocities committed there in a June 8 article titled “Irpin: Russia’s reign of terror in a quiet neighbourhood near Kyiv.” It tells of residents who died. Larisa, 75, a retired kindergarten director. An unidentified young woman in a red coat, found with a handwritten shopping list in her purse. For nearly a month her body lay in Vygovskogo Street near our house. “More than half the victims in this part of Irpin were shot,” the BBC reported. “So many of the dead in this residential quarter were women that the mayor renamed it the place of ‘women’s killings.’” Lord, how can this be? Writing a lament for that woman in the red coat expressed some of my grief and sorrow for my neighbors, my home, the life we once lived there so brutally interrupted. He weeps with me, with my neighbors, with all of Ukraine.

HOPE

During that time of intense fighting in Irpin, volunteers from Irpin Bible Church fed hundreds of people a day and opened the basement as a bomb shelter where people slept overnight. A generator supplied electricity for cooking and charging phones. Throughout the fighting, nearby buildings were damaged and a vehicle in the parking lot burned, but the church building only sustained a broken window. They helped 3,000 people evacuate by the end of March. One church member Anatoliy, 26, was killed along with a family he was helping evacuate as they crossed the broken bridge that leads to Kyiv.

Some who evacuated have returned to their homes if they have homes to return to. The church has established help centers in Irpin and in two other nearby towns. People come for food parcels, hot meals, help repairing homes and spiritual conversations. Bible clubs meet twice a week with newcomers. Visitors fill the seats at Sunday services. Children’s events and day camps have been held this summer. God does send forth his love and faithfulness.

When Irpin was on the front line of the war, I asked God to daily renew my hope in his character and his purposes. He has done that through stories, Scripture and song. The College Church children’s choirs sang John Rutter’s “The Lord Bless You and Keep You,” reminding me that children are the future, and God’s blessing is sure. Lena in my small group said yes to her boyfriend’s marriage proposal on the morning the bombs started falling, and they were later married in Lviv. Another small group member who had long wanted a baby after a miscarriage is now expecting a child in December and doing well. God reminded me of Jeremiah 29:11 hanging on the wall in our home in Irpin: “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Charley had picked up another framed copy of that verse in 2020 when we were away from Ukraine because of COVID. We pulled it out of storage, and it hangs on our wall here.

Friends offered us a home to rent in Wheaton at a time when we felt homeless and needed stability. After five months of travel in Europe and the U.S., moving into a home in late May that dear College Church people had prepared for us was an extraordinary gift, truly a foretaste of “I go to prepare a place for you.” We needed our home church and our daughters, and God has placed us in a lovely home with all four of our daughters in close proximity, two of whom recently moved back to Wheaton from out of state.

We pray for the day when we can return to our home in Irpin, and it is strange not knowing when we can go back. Our friends there are telling us “not yet.” Meanwhile, we continue to pray, to seek wise counsel, to stay in touch with our Ukrainian friends and ministry partners, to find hope in God’s Word. I pray a favorite verse for myself and for my Ukrainian brothers and sisters: “May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance.” (2 Thessalonians 3:5, NIV)

SINGING

David repeatedly looks to God for refuge and returns to the image of God’s wings in Psalm 63:7: “Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings.” (NIV)

There in the desert, he is singing?

As I hide in the shadow of his wings, is God inviting me to something deeper than refuge and safety? His wings cover me when tears flow, when worry for my friends distresses me, when sadness over the losses is too deep for words.

But can I be in that place and sing? Yes. And you, my church family, have helped me do that.

Songs of hope. Songs of lament. Songs of thanksgiving. Songs of longing. Songs of praise. Your voices help me raise mine and see the bigger picture.

Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also; the body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still, his kingdom is forever!

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Be still, my soul, thy God doth undertake to guide the future as he has the past. Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake. All now mysterious shall be bright at last.

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When peace like a river attendeth my way When sorrows like sea billows roll Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say It is well, it is well with my soul.

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We will feast in the house of Zion We will sing with our hearts restored He has done great things, we will say together We will feast and weep no more.