Pause.

I want you to take a moment. Stop whatever it is you’re doing and I want you to follow these directions.

First, I want you to take a deep breath. The kind of breath that straightens out your posture and lowers your shoulders. Do you feel that relief? That is the tension exiting your body.

Now, I want you to take notice of your jaw. Do you feel that stiffness? The pain? I need you to unclench that by forcing yourself to yawn and work out the uncertainty that life has given you.

Next, I want you to say outloud the thing you are most worried about. I don’t care if you are in a crowd of people or if you feel silly. You need to say the worry and help it exit your body.

Finally, I want you to close your eyes. I want you to close your eyes and and feel your pulse. Every beat you feel is purposeful in keeping you alive.

The world is a terrifying place right now. Many people around the world are losing their jobs, losing their loved ones, suffering from illness, and we are slowly being quarantined into our homes. We wonder if we will have enough supplies to last us through this. We wonder how long this madness and uncertainty will last. Unfortunately, we don’t have an answer to these fears. We have zero control over what happens next. However, we do have control over how we respond.

So remember, in times of uncertainty you can always find something that is certain. For me, my certainty is knowing that not only my family is here for me, but that God is here for all of us and that in Matthew 6: 26-27 God tells us: “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”

As scary and uncertain as everything is we have to remember that we as a society have lived through harder times and if God did not give up on humanity then, He is not going to give up on us now.

We can do this.