My four-year-old daughter, Belle, loves the Frozen movies. She has long blond hair that she always wants for me to fix in a side braid – just like Elsa. She knows every one of her songs by heart and sings each one at the top of her lungs as she joyfully skips throughout the house.

Just the other day, she bounded into the kitchen singing “Into the unknownnnnnn!”

I smiled and thought to myself how cute she was. Then I thought how ironic her choice of song was. It felt as if she was (unknowingly, of course) singing about our current reality.

Doesn’t it feel lately like we are forging into the unknown?

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never lived through anything like this before. The closest thing I can even think to compare these last few days of quarantine and COVID-19 hysteria to is 9-11.

On September 11, 2001, I was 22 years old, working on my Master’s degree at Slippery Rock University. I remember watching in horror as the planes crashed into the buildings. I remember feeling helpless as those buildings fell to the ground. I remember the panic I felt, knowing that my soon-to-be husband was working several thousands of miles away, and there was nothing I could do to be with him. I remember weeks later, the fear I felt – wondering if and when any more attacks would come.

On September 11, 2001, the world as we knew it came to a halt. News media was consumed with it. Every conversation focused on it.

We were entering into the unknown.

But….we got through it.

Eventually, life returned to normal.

Over the last few days, our world has once again been consumed by a violent force. This time, however, the enemy is not a person. It isn’t even visible to the naked eye. And yet, it has caused every single thing in our world to come to a standstill. Schools, restaurants, fitness centers, churches…all are closed. People are having actual fights over toilet paper. I couldn’t buy hand sanitizer even if I tried.

Once again, we are forging into the unknown.

And it feels scary.

Collectively, we are worried. We are worried about getting sick. We are worried about the health care system being able to handle all the sick people. We are worried about finances and the toll that missed time from work will take on our families. We are worried about feeling lonely. We are worried about homeschooling our kids. We are worried about….toilet paper.

We are worried that life will never return to normal.

But, it will.  We WILL get through this.

The Bible teaches us not to worry about tomorrow, because each day has enough trouble of its own (Matthew 6:34). I’ll be the first to admit that this is hard to put into practice, even when we aren’t facing a global pandemic.

The way I try to conquer my anxiety on a day-to-day basis is to remind myself of how God has been faithful in the past. I think of hard times I have faced, and how I’ve overcome them with His help.

So far, God has never once failed to come through for me. And I’d be willing to bet He hasn’t failed you yet either.

Therefore, my challenge to everyone reading this is to stop right now and consider at least 5 times God has helped you in the past to overcome a hard time. This will help you to build your trust in Him. If God helped you in the past, He will help you again. If He was faithful in the past, we can trust Him to be faithful again!

No matter what our current situation is – God’s got us. He won’t let us go! My prayer is that we would all take our fears and worries about this current health crisis and lay them at His feet.

I honestly don’t know what the future holds. But I do know who holds the future. Therefore, I am not afraid of the unknown!