The Fourteen Gifts

At 4:42 a.m. on February 22, 2022, eleven-year-old Yuliya Kamyshin wakes to the sounds of Russian artillery and tanks attacking close to her home in Mariupol, Ukraine. Within minutes of the predawn attack, her father and older brother are off to fight the invading Russians. Her mother, Anya, and she are forced to evacuate their badly damaged apartment building. They shelter in Yuliya’s primary school cafeteria, but not for long. The Russian artillery targets the school, and Yuliya is separated from her mother.

Everything Yuliya knows is gone—her family, her school, and the only home she has ever known. The only thing Yuliya has left in life is her faith in the Lord God. God bestows his grace with fourteen gifts given to Yuliya by the mighty messenger Michael, the archangel. Over the course of many life-threatening challenges, Michael delivers encouragement, protection, and one by one, the fourteen verses of King David’s twenty-seventh psalm at the exact appropriate time.

-- Michael S. Rolland