Depending on when you start counting, we are approximately 10 days into quarantine. We are starting to figure out what our day to day might look like, but it will take a little while before any of this even starts to feel normal. That’s all many of us really want right now: something to feel normal. Unfortunately, normal could still be a bit further down the road.

While we sit in the restlessness of uncertainty, we are being asked to do the hardest thing of all: nothing. In our normal lives we all go through times of anxiety or personal angst and we find ways to work through it. We hit the gym, we buy something we don’t need, we focus on work, or maybe just have a good Sunday spent with the people of hope. However, we are living in a world where all those things are closed. We are being asked to find new ways to cope.

I hope you can use this time to pick up some positive habits. Pray, read your Bible, set some time aside during your day to devote to God. Luke 12:23-26 says, “For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. 24 Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! 25 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 26 If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest?”

Right now, most of the world is shut down. In the future, many of us will reflect on this as a turning point for their lives. Some will turn for the better and some will turn for the worse. No matter where this strange time leads us, we must continually remind ourselves and the people around us that God cares for us deeply. Do what you can to remind each other of that whenever possible. Socially distant doesn’t mean relationally distant. Reach out to someone.

Now wash your hands and don’t touch your face.