A Saturday Evening Post

People-watching is one of my favorite things to do. 

For the first few years during our duration in Ukraine, we lived in a fourth floor apartment near the center of town, right on the main street, named “Pipe Worker Street”. It was an older building and had higher ceilings than the newer apartment buildings, and we had huge windows that overlooked a busy street below.

As we watched frequently, when we were bored, Andrew and I began to recognize some of the people that walked below our kitchen window; there was always that one with the bizarre hat, or another with a bulging pregnant belly. In fact, we started to notice a lot of pregnant bellies passing below us. The number of strollers and toddlers didn’t seem to be all that out of the ordinary, but there were ever so many pregnant women! As we learned more about Ukrainian families and culture, we found most families had one child, or sometimes two, so why were there so many pregnant women? And why didn’t the number of pregnancies reflect the number of babies being born? 

It wasn’t till our second year living in Ukraine we discovered the reason. We were expecting our second child ourselves and I had to find a doctor. A friend told us where the maternity ward was, which we discovered was right down at the end of a smaller streed that formed the corner our apartment looked out on!  Ukrainian hospitals do not have every service in one location. You can have a hospital for infections, and another for pediatrics and another for orthopedics, etc.

What this means is that every pregnant woman in town passed under our kitchen window! The strollers and toddlers all went to a different location. Had we lived in another part of town, we might have wondered why there was so many babies, but nobody was pregnant!  

Our perspective was influenced by something we were not aware of. We observed our surroundings and drew conclusions on what we knew but didn’t have the full picture. When we learned the rest of the story our logical dilemma was resolved.  

What if we do not have the big picture? What if God is working an angle we do not have access to? What if the seemingly senseless war in Ukraine has a spiritual significance that we will never see?  

Peter said in Luke 22:33 that he was willing to follow Jesus to the grave, and we all know Jesus’ famous reply: “Before the rooster crows, you will have denied me three times.”

How did Peter go from hot to cold so quickly? He had been with Jesus and had seen Jesus defeat the Pharisees’ logic over and over again. He had seen the miracles! Peter put his game pieces in place mentally for how he thought Jesus was going to set up a physical kingdom on earth. The disciples were even claiming dibs on the position of being Jesus’ first advisor. Peter forced Jesus’ words into his mental equation, and then filtered out all those times Jesus foretold His death and resurrection because they did not fit his expectations.  

Then the board was flipped. Jesus was arrested, and that is when we read about Peter’s denials.  Immediately, just as Jesus said, the rooster crowed. Peter’s entire world shifted. God does not just make us spiritual, but sometimes he lets us arrive there through difficulties. 

We often try to pack God into our little philosophical box, but God does not fit. If he did, he would have become no more than another Greek philosophy. This is why we need a God we cannot understand. He is greater than our finite philosophies can explain.  

I see myself in Peter. In modern times we have our little equation mapped out, how God works and moves in our lives, and we are comfortable there. For a lot of Ukrainians, recent events ‘spun the gameboard’ many like Peter, have had a spiritual growth spurt this past month.  

Few people are left who remember World War ll. Even Vietnam feels like a distant memory. The invasion of Ukraine has been the first time most people have ever witnessed what a real war looks like.   For many of us, the question has lurked in the back of our minds; How would I react if war came to my country? What would become of the church if war was fought on our turf? I hope I would have the courage Ukrainians have shown. Peter later became an incredible tool for God to use to establish his kingdom, but he would have never been the pillar of the church that he became if he had not been given the opportunity to grow.

Another memory I have from when we lived in Ukraine was the weather. That same kitchen window faced west, and we began to notice that no matter what the weather was, the sun always came out around five in the evening, the clouds rolled back a little bit before the sun dipped below the horizon. God is faithful, the sun will shine again. The clouds will rollback. God hasn’t forgotten his people.