If you’re reading this, you’re still here. The Mayan calendar had predicted the world would end on December 21, 2012. According to this article from NBC News, more than 30 Michigan schools opted to close for the holiday two days early, due to rumors running rampant in several school districts about potential violence against students since the tragic events that took the lives of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT and because of the Mayan calendar prediction.

The tragedy at Sandy Hook has changed many lives. On Monday, when my children returned to school after a weekend filled with news reports unfolding the events at Sandy Hook as they knew them, I felt a twinge of anxiety. My daughter was going to Boston on a field trip. What if the bus got into an accident? What if something happened to the children at the museum? Security had been stepped up at my other daughter’s school and the front door was now being manned by a member of the staff. I had never been afraid for their safety before, so why now?

Philippians 4:6 tell us, “‘Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.'” In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus also reminds us, “‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 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?”‘

No one knows what the day will bring. At least not us. God knows. He’s in control. And it’s with faith that we must approach each day of our lives, or anxiety over tragedies like Sandy Hook and predictions of the world’s end will leave us hiding inside our houses, afraid to leave the presumed safety of our own four walls.

We must also remember, “‘But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.'” (Matthew 24:36)

I hope you’ll join us in praying for the victims of Sandy Hook Elementary and observe a moment of silence at 9:30 AM, which will mark the one week anniversary of this tragedy. We ask that God wrap these families in His loving arms and bring them comfort and peace.