The Faith of Our Children, Hope for a Future
Guest Commentary
Audio By Carbonatix
By D’vora M.B., Crosswalk.com
As we enter a new year, I find myself reflecting not only on the losses and upheaval my nation has endured over the past two years, but also on the unexpected places where I have found hope and a future. That hope has come from a surprising, but not so surprising, source: my own children.
For two years, our country has lived under the constant shadow of war—sirens, rockets, missiles, drones, terror attacks, and long nights spent in shelters. Even now, with an apparent end to hostilities, we hear rumors of war. We wonder, will it ever end?
I am Israeli through and through, born and raised in Israel. I love God with all my heart and soul. I have lived through many conflicts since childhood, yet nothing matches the depth of fear and grief that we endured during the Iron Swords War. Surviving mode was always just a siren away. The fear that a siren might start at any minute was always in your mind. The sound that told you danger was coming your way in a matter of seconds or minutes.
In the middle of so much darkness, light kept breaking through in the form of still small voices—God speaking to me through my daughter.
“Whenever we are afraid, we will trust in God.”
At the beginning of the war, my daughter was four years old. I am a wife and mother, I work full-time as director of Dugit Outreach Ministries, and I am also a certified search and rescue volunteer. Each time I left for a search-and-rescue shift—knowing rockets and missiles were falling near our hometown, knowing my children were running to shelters without me—she would whisper words of life to me:
“Remember, Mummy, whenever we are afraid, we will trust in God.”
When I returned home from a shift, exhausted and worried, she would run into my arms and report, with complete sincerity,
“Mummy, even during the sirens and bombings, I trusted in God.”
Her confidence was disarming. It still is. At an age when children should be learning songs, stories, and games, she was learning how to pray during air raid sirens—and teaching me to do the same.
A song in a shelter
One day, a terror attack struck my own hometown. Two terrorists attacked civilians with cars and knives, killing one woman and injuring many others, including Israeli children. I received a frantic alert from our municipality, and then from my children’s kindergarten: The terrorists were nearby; the children were locked in the shelter; parents were not to come.
Those minutes stretched into what felt like hours. I dropped to my knees in the living room, praying and asking God to protect my children because I could not.
When the danger finally passed, and I rushed to the kindergarten, my daughter’s teacher pulled me aside.
“Do you know what your little girl did while we were hiding from the terrorists?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“She began singing,” the teacher said. “And soon she was teaching the song to the other girls.”
Then she shared the words of Psalm 121 that my daughter had taught her classmates:
“The Keeper of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.
Where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.”
In one of the most terrifying moments of their young lives, my daughter was singing worship—offering others the comfort she herself was clinging to.
If God can use a five-year-old hiding from terrorists to bring hope to others, what else might He do through each of us?
A valley of shadows—and a voice of hope
A year later, during a massive barrage of Iranian ballistic missiles, I lay on the roadside shielding my children with my own body—praying Psalm 23 over them as explosions lit up the sky. My daughter was slightly injured from a blast nearby, yet she held onto the same trust she has carried since the beginning.
Today, my daughter is six. She still challenges me in my faith and hope in the God of Israel.
During a midnight siren, she whispered:
“Mummy, are the bombs from Hamas, Hezbollah, or Iran?”
When I explained they were from the Houthis in Yemen, she was quiet for a moment before asking,
“Why do so many people hate us and want us dead?”
Before I could answer, she said, “It is okay, Mummy. God loves us.”
In that moment—foggy, tired, frightened—my daughter spoke a truth deeper than fear, deeper than politics, deeper than war.
What the New Year invites us to remember
As I look toward this New Year, I cannot undo the pain my nation has walked through. I cannot erase the trauma, the sleepless nights, the empty chairs, the stories too raw to tell. But I can choose where to anchor my hope.
I find that hope in an unshakable kingdom (Hebrews 12:28), and in the challenging and encouraging faith of our children—children who have seen too much yet somehow believe more fiercely than many adults.
Their faith has reminded me of a truth that war cannot touch: God’s promises do not depend on our circumstances. His covenant with Israel is not fragile. His love remains, even in the darkest moments. He has a hope and a future for us. May our children—the unexpected beacons of hope—lead us toward it.
And may the God who neither slumbers nor sleeps watch over Israel and over all who trust in Him in the year to come.
Related Article
How a Mother Discovers True Thanksgiving in the Middle of a War
Photo Credit: ©GettyImages/MichaelTruelove
D'vora M.B. is the director of Dugit Outreach Ministries in Tel Aviv. She also conducted the research behind the historical nonfiction book, Legacy of Hope: Hidden Heroes from Generation to Generation, about the protection of Bulgaria’s Jews from Nazi death camps during World War II.
