THE SUN WILL RISE

By Andrea Guachalla

Our lives have changed. Quickly.
March, the month of being indecisive on whether to go out with warm clothes or not, arrived in Vienna with a notification on our phones. An email saying that the university would be closed. “But not for too long, a couple of weeks at most.”

The bright cold morning of March 11th arose with a comforting headline in the newspaper: “Despite the outbreak in China and Italy, we will be fine.” A man recommended in the early news on TV: “if possible, stay at home.”

That was twenty days ago.

Today the same questions arise in everyone’s home.

Will the university open before the summer comes? Will I soon meet my classmates without a screen standing in between us? We don’t know…

Now that Europe and the USA are the epicenters of the pandemic, and the virus is spreading far and beyond. Will the measures and decisions being taken by the highest authorities make them say any time soon: “yes, we are fine”? They don’t know…

Now that staying at home stopped being a suggestion and moved on to be a command. Will I stop wondering whether my short and lonely walk to the Supermarket will get me a fine? Will my church family and I gather on a Sunday and raise our voices singing praises to God? I don’t know…

Nobody does.

Your daily routine has changed.

My daily routine has changed.

A third of the time I go from staring at my computer’s screen while the numbers increase one at a time, ten at a time, or a thousand at a time, to stare at the wall thinking about what that implies. My mind unconsciously prays that the families of those who lost their lives will be fine. 

Another third of the time I go from staring at my phone where the website of the pandemic statistics is always open to staring at the empty street through the dirty window and then again to my phone. My thumb goes instinctively to the refresh button, and I quickly calculate how many new infection cases there are since the last time I saw, five minutes ago… 

The rest of the time I spend half worrying, half living in survival mode.

I wake up, and I worry.

I eat, and I worry.

I call a friend, and I worry.

I read, and I worry…

“Please stop” I often say to myself.

I’m placing the dirty dishes from lunch to the dishwasher when a thought crosses my mind threatening to disappear as quickly as it came.

“Which of you…? …life.”

The thought wavers and I am barely able to grab it before it drifts.

“And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life?”

Matthew 6:27, English Standard Version

No one.

Not even I.

And if I cannot add one hour to my span of life through worrying, overthinking, and being anxious, there is only one thing I can do: obey God when he says: 

“Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

Matthew 6:31-33, English Standard Version

By the grace of God, I can trust that He will provide, and He will protect us. I can trust that even the hairs of my head are all numbered and that He is caring and merciful. I can trust that God understands my deepest needs and concerns, for His very Son, Jesuschrist, suffered the worst of deaths instead of us and was resurrected the third day.

I look outside.

The blueness of the heavens reminds me that, no matter where you are, we are all under the same sky. We are all under the wings of a holy, loving God.

My mind is clear, my burden is light. 

The twenty days that have passed seem remote and distant. They are obscured by the day that it’s coming and saying that the sun, again, will rise. A new day announcing that I might be smaller than the tiniest virus, but GOD IS GOD.