Uncertainty

By KE

Editor’s Note:

In our last essay, we asked what it means for institutions to act with courage. This week, we turn toward the quiet courage of students who, with nothing guaranteed, still choose to grow.

The following poem was written by an international undergraduate whose journey began not with certainty, but with faith. She boarded a plane to a country she had never been to, with no housing secured and no guarantee of a welcome. What she found was not a place waiting for her but the capacity to shape one.

Midway through her first semester, she encountered a concept in a Biodiversity class that gave language to what she had already begun: niche creation. Just as organisms transform their environments to survive, she reshaped unfamiliar surroundings into a space for belonging. What emerged was not just adaptation, but a sacred transformation.

Her words carry echoes of Hebrews 11. “The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” They testify to a faith lived daily through solo walks, blank canvases, late-night prayers, and the courage to greet uncertainty not as a threat but as a guide to renewal.

She does not ask for pity or praise. Instead, she bears witness to becoming, to belonging, to grace unfolding through struggle and stillness alike.

Let us receive this not as performance, but as prayer.

Uncertainty 
By KE

What do you do
when the time you always knew would end
ends anyway,
not suddenly,
but like a crash in slow motion,
like my grandmother’s passing.

The end was promised,
not whispered, not hidden,
marked clear in the contract of time,
I knew it would come.
I just thought the sun would linger longer
on the green of this campus,
on the laughter echoing through my living room,
on the hush of library halls
where I bartered sleep for a dream.

This place, these years,
a messy miracle.

Uncertainty
upon arrival, she greeted me at the gate,
daring me to try,
to find a place where no one knew my name,
and Lord knows
I did not belong,
but I did not beg for space.
I created it.
And now,
here she is again — Uncertainty.
Not an enemy,
just a cue,
a signal that something is beginning again.

I remember late-night walks
no destination,
the hum of a vibrant Central Avenue
buzzing just a few blocks away,
a way to end the day,
to return to myself.
Walking unafraid,
unwilling to let fear tell me where to go.

I made room for new growth
out of solo dates
where I sat across from myself and said,
“Look at you. Here.
Because of all the odds. Here.”
out of early morning Bible studies
where the Word made room in me.

I painted
though never enough,
more canvases remained blank
than those that caught color,
not for lack of desire or inspiration,
but because...
Because.
Still, I painted not to escape,
but to remember,
to feel childlike wonder,
to wrestle with perfection,
to bring something into being.
I painted to sit with God,
to meet Him in the quiet.
Each painting a prayer.
Each blank one, too.

I chased sunrises,
the Son’s reminder that joy comes
anew each morning.
I looked forward to sunsets,
standing in awe
that it always gets better
the colors deepen,
the picture grows richer,
until the light is gone.

I left for Switzerland
and returned with the world inside me —
a prophecy fulfilled,
a perpetual gift.
The land of milk and money,
of wealth and wonder,
and jazz.
Always jazz.
Music like mourning
and becoming,
both.
I want to go back.

I missed home,
then found it again
in new cities,
new friends,
the quiet, steady breath of independence,
in the boldness of trying (again).

Somewhere in the in-between,
I became everything I once hoped to be,
then something entirely different
something more tender,
more true,
more tired.

Rest became a line item
on a to-do list I never finished.
Always too busy,
always in debt to the next task.
All the check-ins
that remain unanswered—
for a day, a week, a year.
I’m trying to rest,
I know it’s a gift
still wrapped,
waiting for me to unwrap it.
It’s on the to-do list.

But while I round up the sheep to count,
I search for words bigger than thank you.
I am grateful
For the shoulders I’m standing on,
For the grief,
For the joy,
For the art,
For the love,
For the struggle and the ease,
For time, even when it’s running out.

Uncertainty—
she’s tapping her foot,
eyes sharp,
her arms crossed.
She’s waited long enough.
She leans in close,
whispering what I know to be true:
It’s time.
Time to step into the unknown,
time to lay down roots where no soil has yet
felt my touch.
She wants me to move forward,
wants me to carry what I’ve learned and
keep walking,
keep growing.
I feel her impatience,
the push that comes with the weight of
what’s next.

I won’t keep her waiting long.
I’m all packed.
I greet her like an old friend,
knowing what follows:
growth,
grace,
the gentle unfolding of a new kind of home.

I’m rushing out the door,
going with Uncertainty,
but I am going
to the place God already prepared for me.
I go
not because of who I’ve become,
but for who He has yet to reveal.

As always, many thanks for reading.

KE and Dr. G

Also, congratulations to you, KE, on our graduation this May. I’m super proud of you.