Gratitude Amidst Uncertainty

By Junia Howell | November 5, 2024

3 minute read

Ctrl-c, ctrl-v, shift-4, double-click, ctrl-b.

My thoughts wandered as I mindlessly copied, pasted, and formatted numbers into the quarterly financial report. Beyond nominally checking that the digits matched across the records, I wasn’t processing their quantity. And then, suddenly, my eyes locked into one number: $114,937.13—eruka’s total 2024 revenue to date.

Unexpected Provisions

For a bit of context, eruka’s total revenue at this same time last year was exactly $25. The nearly 5000-fold increase in revenue was striking and still seems a bit unreal. But that’s not actually what caught my attention.

I realized that that number almost perfectly matched the $115,000 I had whimsically outlined in January as our goal revenue. I paused, opened up my file folder, and searched for the proposed budget.

Not only did the total match, but the amount received from donations versus service fees also matched. That might sound like good budgeting, but it wasn’t. I didn’t have data or information for accurate budgeting. Plus, the sources of the income have not been remotely close to what I was imagining back in January.

Our donations came overwhelmingly from a single, generous individual. Their unexpected gift not only has carried us through but has been an emotional reminder of community support. And the vast majority of our other funds have come from unplanned contract work.

The money hadn’t come from the sources I expected or on the timeline I planned. But it had come.

Grateful for the Unexpected Good

As I sat and looked in awe at the numbers, I was overwhelmed with gratitude. Beyond the revenue, we recently hired a new Director of Operations, who is elevating our processes and enabling us to get more done. I have been working on hiring all year. Much like with our revenue, my carefully designed and executed hiring plans have not panned out. Yet, somehow, small comments in casual conversations have opened unexpected doors, leading to new team members and promising possibilities.

Starting something new always comes with uncertainty. Starting an organization with a vision of transforming the global economy feels, at times, like an insane gamble (because, let’s be real, it is).

Amid all the uncertainty, I am often tempted to feel stressed. I like making plans, and I like even better when things go exactly according to my plans. Nevertheless, over this last month I have been repeatedly reminded that the unexpected can be much better than my plans.

In all of our personal lives, but also in our collective economic and political lives, there is an abundance of uncertainty—uncertainty that often feels extremely unsettling and uncomfortable. But this uncertainty also breeds opportunities for needed change and unexpected gifts.

As our organization and nation continue to face many uncertainties, I am choosing to remember the many unexpected, unearned, and even unrecognized gifts that gratefully enable us to keep working towards a better tomorrow.