Prayers for those in a war zone
For some time now I have been teaching English at the local Ukraine Association in my country. The students are mostly women – mothers – whose husbands are fighting on the front line. Some of these women have become close friends.
A while ago, one of these friends, who knows I am a Christian Scientist, asked me to pray for her and her daughter as they undertook a hazardous trip back to Ukraine to visit their family, having not seen them for over a year. I assured her that I would.
Initially I didn’t know where to begin. How do you pray for someone entering a war zone?
What came to me was to pray to know more clearly the omnipresence of God as Love. So that’s what I did throughout their trip. I prayed from the standpoint of the supremacy of God, who is entirely good.
There’s a Bible verse that includes this promise from God: “I have loved thee with an everlasting love” (Jeremiah 31:3). This is a promise for everyone. As God’s children, we’re not mortals subject to danger but spiritual ideas – held safe in the uninvaded, and uninvadable, kingdom of heaven. We can never be separated from God, divine Love, or outside of God’s presence. Everyone has an innate ability, as God’s beloved child, to know and feel that spiritual reality.
My friend later reported that despite the ongoing threat and the constant sirens and drones overhead, she felt safe during her visit and didn’t feel any of the trauma she had previously. Instead she was able to focus on the joy of being with her family and the beauty around her, which the power of divine Truth and the understanding of God’s presence with her enabled my friend to see.
I thought of this experience when I was listening to an Oct. 2023 BBC interview with two women – both mothers, one in Gaza and one in Israel, both caught in the Israel-Hamas war. They were asked what they would say to a mother on the “other side.” Their responses reflected a shared love for one another and for their children. The mother in Israel said, in effect, “That my heart goes to her and her children. I’m sure that as a mother she would pray for peace as I do.” The mother in the heart of the Gaza Strip replied along the lines of, “I share with you the same fears. I share with you the same concerns for the future of my children.”
I found the interview so moving that in tears I reached out to God in prayer. What would I say to them, if I could? What would I want them to know?
Through Christian Science I have come to know God as Father-Mother, ever-present Love, tenderly caring for all of us – His, Her, beloved children. And as Christ Jesus proved through his healing ministry, holding to this spiritual reality enables us to experience more of God’s harmony in day-to-day life.
So my prayers affirmed that those dear mothers – indeed all mothers, fathers, children, and wider families – are in the presence of divine Love and can feel and know this Love. The mothering, guiding, protecting love of God surrounds everyone, no matter which side of a border they may be on.
The woman who discovered Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy – also a mother – wrote a poem that beautifully speaks to the fathering, mothering love of God. One of the verses says:
Beneath the shadow of His mighty wing;
In that sweet secret of the narrow way,
Seeking and finding, with the angels sing:
“Lo, I am with you alway,” – watch and pray.
(“Poems,” p. 4)
Most of us can’t claim to know what it’s like to be in a war zone, but we can embrace in our prayers those who are – whether in Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, or elsewhere. We can hold steadfastly to the spiritual facts that all of God’s children are held safe in divine Love, and that everyone, everywhere, can know God’s mothering love as a tender yet powerful comforting, healing, and saving presence.
