The Maternity Ward in Kyiv

On February 24, 2022, when Russian missiles began striking Kyiv, doctors and nurses at the Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital rushed newborns from the maternity ward into a makeshift bomb shelter in the basement. Mothers who had given birth only hours earlier carried their infants down concrete stairs in the dark, wrapped in hospital blankets, while explosions shook the walls above them.

One nurse, Halyna Kutsenko, described the scene to BBC reporters: mothers huddled together underground, shielding tiny bodies with their own, singing lullabies over the sound of artillery. The shelter had been prepared weeks earlier by staff who saw the threat coming. Supplies were stocked. Generators were ready. When the dragon arrived at the door, a place of refuge was already waiting.

This is the vision John paints in Revelation 12. A woman in the agony of labor. A great red dragon poised to devour her child the moment he draws breath. Every force of destruction bent on consuming the most vulnerable life imaginable. And yet the child is born. The child is snatched to safety. The woman finds shelter in a place God Himself has prepared.

The powers of this world bare their teeth at every holy thing. But the Almighty does not leave His people unprotected. He prepares the basement before the bombs fall. He shelters the mother before the dragon strikes. And the voice from heaven still rings out: now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God.