A Spiritual Path Forward

WE LIVE IN A SEASON WHERE THE FUTURE CAN FEEL FOGGY AND SOMETIMES DIM. Looking ahead can stir a mix of emotions—anticipation, curiosity, fear—sometimes all at once. Uncertainty has always been part of the human experience, but today it can feel amplified. Wars flare across maps. Policies shift overnight. Climate alarms sound. Even our personal horizons feel unsettled as students wonder what work will look like in an age of AI. And the noise arrives instantly, as our news feeds update in milliseconds. In such a torrent, hope can seem naïve. 

In moments like these, it can be tempting to believe the message that says, “You are not safe.” But I’m learning to read it differently: “You do not yet see.”

That shift has mattered to me, especially as I’ve watched it happen in my own life. In 2022, I expected to graduate high school in my hometown of Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, and then study in Kyiv. That was my plan—what I wanted and what I thought I needed. Then Russia invaded. Rockets stitched the sky above my hometown. The future shrank to a single, urgent question: Are my family and friends alive today?

A few months later, I was in a refugee camp in Germany, measuring life by new variables I couldn’t control. And soon after that, I arrived in the United States with more uncertainty. At that time, I didn’t even know the Christian Science Hymnal existed. If I had, I would have found comfort in Hymn 148: “And safe is such confiding, for nothing changes here. . . . God is round about me, And can I be dismayed?” 

Previously, I emphasized that I wanted and thought I needed a particular future. There’s a sentence from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy that I carry like a pocket stone. “Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need.” 

What this statement doesn’t promise is that every desire will be met. But if something is truly required for growth, safety, or purpose, it won’t be withheld. And if something I want is withheld, perhaps it is mercy I don’t yet recognize. That thought has kept me from panicking and has helped me to act with trust instead of haste. 

I’ve come to believe there’s no such thing as a small impact. We can be surprised by how much sincere prayers and thoughts can mean. Each act of care is significant and may play a crucial role in someone’s life. And as life keeps bringing challenges of every size, no “problem scale” should measure our trust in God or the depth of our thoughts and prayers. Whether an issue feels minor or immense, our work is the same: to think more generously, to pray more honestly, and to keep seeking a better world for all of us. 

I don’t expect the fog to lift on command, but I do expect enough light to see the next faithful step.  

Between the moment I write this and the moment you read it, the world will most likely have shifted again. There may be new waves of uncertainty. I am choosing, instead, to step forward with a wider attention and deeper trust. 

“In this period and the forthcoming centuries, watered by dews of divine Science, this ‘tree of life’ will blossom into greater freedom, and its leaves will be ‘for the healing of the nations’” (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 94).