Meeting God on the Front Lines of War​

A UKRAINIAN SOLDIER'S STORY OF TRANSFORMATION
Ukraine

I had been at my position for ninety-two days. Ninety-two days of holding the line, waiting, and wondering if any of us would make it out alive. I’m an infantryman from the Donetsk direction. Our unit was defending a school building shaped like the Ukrainian letter “П.” It was supposed to be a strong position—but soon we were completely surrounded.
 
Food came once a day by drone. That was all. There was a well in the schoolyard, so we could still get water, and before the city’s logistics broke down, we had managed to store a good supply of weapons and ammunition. For a while, it felt like that would be enough. But as the days dragged on, one by one, my brothers fell. When it was finally over, only three of us made it out alive.
 
Before the war, I didn’t believe in God. I used to think faith was for the weak, for people who needed something to hold onto. But there, surrounded and starving, I started to pray—first out of desperation, then out of something deeper. I didn’t even know if anyone was listening, but I couldn’t stop crying out to heaven.
 
One time, for three days straight, the drones couldn’t reach us because of the visibility. No food, no medicine. Many of the men were sick. On the third day, I couldn’t take it anymore. I looked up at the gray sky and said, “God, if You really exist, please, close the sky so our drone can come safely.”
 
That day, a thick fog rolled in…so dense you could barely see ten meters ahead. And through that fog, the drone came. It brought everything we needed. I can’t explain it. All I know is that it was impossible, and yet it happened. God literally closed the enemy’s eyes.
 
When I finally made it back and met the chaplains, I told them this story. I told them how I came to the front as an atheist, but somewhere in those ninety-two days, I met God. Not in a church, not through a sermon, but in the middle of fear, hunger, and fog.
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Now I know He was with me all along.

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