When the Ground Shifts: Knowing Jesus in Uncertain Times

 

When the Ground Shifts Knowing Jesus in Uncertain Times: A personal reflection on public service, grief, resilience, and the hope found in Christ 

The clip about trying to explain how we got through 2025 made me laugh. The laugh came easily because the question felt familiar. How do you explain a year of uncertainty, exhaustion, loss, and change to someone who did not live it with you? And how do you explain what carries you through when the next year brings another set of questions? Even through 2026?

For me, the answer begins with Jesus. Not because faith makes hard things disappear, and not because I have always felt strong. It begins with Jesus because, through the hardest parts of my life, I have needed more than a paycheck, a title, a plan, or the promise that circumstances will settle down. I have needed a Savior I can know and trust when circumstances do not.

When public uncertainty becomes personal

I have served in the Navy and Air Force and built a life in federal public service. I have known the disorientation of leaving military service, the long work of healing from trauma, and the pressure of continuing to function while carrying more than people can see. My faith began when I was young, but knowing Jesus has become deeper and more personal through the years: through transition, PTSD, grief, family responsibilities, and the ordinary demands of showing up.

The past year brought another kind of strain. Federal work was shaken by furlough fears, staffing losses, changing responsibilities, and a 43-day government shutdown. I tried to keep life moving while trying to understand what each new announcement might mean for my work and the people around me. Then the fiscal year ended amid understaffing, deadlines, and reorganization. I was grateful to make it through, but I was also tired. Resilience does not mean a person has no limits.

Current reporting shows how the effects of 2025’s upheaval are still unfolding. A September 2026 Government Executivereport described a settlement between the administration and federal employee unions over RIF notices issued during the 43-day shutdown in 2025. Under the settlement, those notices were rescinded, and employees separated through those RIFs were reinstated. Agencies must also remove shutdown-related RIF authorizations from their contingency plans and provide notice if they later seek to change those plans. The article reported that about 4,200 notices had been issued across several departments and agencies. The settlement offers consequential protections, but it came after employees had already lived with the fear of losing their jobs. [1]

A second Government Executive report, published September 30, 2026, described a different and still-unresolved matter: a federal judge extended a temporary stay on USDA management-directed reassignment deadlines through October 13 while considering a possible preliminary injunction. The judge had not yet decided whether to issue one. The article said such an order could halt relocation plans potentially affecting about 2,600 employees. It also reported that 725 USDA employees had received relocation letters and 64 percent had accepted reassignment. The judge raised questions about attrition and the loss of experienced staff, while the government and plaintiffs disputed how congressional spending restrictions apply. [2]

These are separate cases, and neither article speaks for every federal employee. Together, they show how decisions in Washington, courtrooms, and agency offices reach into people’s lives: families weigh whether they can move, employees wonder whether to stay, and teams keep serving as colleagues leave and responsibilities shift. Behind every notice and staffing number is a human life.

The limits of institutions and the steadiness of Christ

Public institutions matter. Laws, courts, unions, leaders, and coworkers can protect people and hold power accountable. The shutdown settlement shows that collective action and legal process can change policy. The USDA case shows how important it is to ask whether a reorganization has considered its effects on employees and the work an agency must do. Christians should care about justice, truth, humane treatment, and the burdens carried by workers. Prayer does not excuse us from caring about what happens to people.

But institutions are not God. They can be changed, challenged, delayed, or misunderstood. A court can pause a decision, but it cannot promise that every person’s future will feel secure. A new fiscal year can begin without giving us all the answers we hoped for. My federal job matters to me, and I have invested many years in service and retirement. Yet no job can carry the weight of being my ultimate source of identity or peace.

That place belongs to Jesus. In John 16:33, Jesus is honest that there will be trouble in this world, and he points his followers toward the hope found in him. He does not ask me to pretend the trouble is small. He meets me in it. When I have been grieving Sukie, missing my shipmate Robert, remembering painful seasons, or lying awake under the weight of the next workday, I have needed the presence of Christ—not a slogan telling me to be stronger.

Knowing Jesus is more than knowing facts about him or reaching for faith only when everything else fails. It is learning to bring him the whole truth: fear and anger, gratitude and grief, the desire to keep serving and the exhaustion that makes me wonder how long I can keep doing it. It is receiving grace, seeking wisdom, accepting help, and remembering that my worth is not measured by how much I can carry without asking anyone to help.

Bible Verses for Tough Times

A hope that does not depend on an easy year

I do not know how every policy fight will end, what the next reorganization will mean, or what each person affected by these decisions will choose. I do know that the headlines are not the final measure of my life. My hope is not that every institution will act perfectly or every season will become easy. My hope is that Jesus is present, faithful, and able to sustain us through what we cannot control.

That hope does not make me passive. It gives me a reason to tell the truth, care about my colleagues, support fair treatment, ask for clarity, and seek work that is sustainable. It gives me permission to rest. It reminds me that loving our neighbors includes noticing when they are overburdened and refusing to treat people as disposable numbers.

So when someone asks how we got through 2025 and everything that followed, I cannot give one tidy answer. We got through by helping one another, by continuing one day at a time, by making room for grief and small joys, and by leaning on the grace of God. I am still tired. I am still figuring things out. And I am still learning to know Jesus more deeply—not only in the beautiful moments, but in the uncertainty too.

Maybe that is the question worth carrying into this new season: When the ground shifts beneath us, where do we look for a hope that can hold? For me, the answer is Christ. Not because I have escaped every storm, but because I have found that I do not have to face it without him.

For reflection

Where have you looked for security when life has felt uncertain? What does it mean to know Jesus personally in a season when the answers are still unfolding? And how can we, as neighbors and people of faith, help carry the burdens of those around us?

Sources
[1] Jory Heckman, “Shutdown mass-layoff policy rescinded as part of settlement with unions,” Government Executive, September 25, 2026.
[2] Jory Heckman, “Judge extends temporary pause in USDA relocations as he considers indefinite freeze,” Government Executive, September 30, 2026.