Have you thought about how crazy it is that an invisible force, something so tiny as a microscopic parasite has the world upside down in pretty much every way? This virus has people in hospitals wondering if they will ever see their loved ones again, doctors and nurses battling every day to make sure they come home safe, people worried about their work situation and education programs being completely redesigned… it has done so much to us yet we can’t see it physically. To me it’s so ironic. We are all fighting against something we can’t even see.

One of my best friends has a pretty cool tattoo I have always loved. I remember it had been a long time since I had seen her, and the first thing I noticed were these black arranged dots on her wrist. I immediately asked her with curiosity what those dots were. She replied: “It means ‘faith’ in braille. It reminds me that I don’t have to physically see to believe.”

I have been thinking about faith so much lately. I don’t want to sound religious, because I do not consider myself a religious person. Faith to me is so much more than just religion. Faith literally means trusting wholeheartedly in someone or something. Faith is that strength within us that connects strong ideas in our brains with feelings in our hearts and emotions in our souls. Quoting Oswald Chambers, “Faith never knows where it is being led, but it knows and loves the One who is leading.” Throughout my life I have met so many people with so many different but all beautiful kinds of faith. They all have inspired me to grow deeper in my own faith and what I have chosen to believe and build my life upon. How you build your faith is completely up to you and each and every one of us has the right to discover and believe in what we want. 

We don’t need to physically see this virus to know that it is here. As we are all fighting against COVID-19 this year, I believe we should all fight back with the most powerful invisible force on earth (after gravity of course!)... faith! We can all believe that there will be a better tomorrow. We can all believe that this too shall pass. We can all believe that we will come out stronger out of this. We can all believe that despite this circumstance we can endure joyfully and support each other.

They say the best kind of faith is the one that leads us to action. Seeing so many people reach out to those in need and providing for them, doctors and nurses working long shifts to help patients survive, parents at home teaching their kids math for the first time, students helping each other in order to pass their classes, families sticking together in the midst of difficulty… we are all acting in faith.

I hope as you read this you are encouraged to have hope, to stay strong and to believe that things will get better. Let your faith invade you with peace during this time and if you can, choose to believe in good, choose to believe that there will be a brighter future for us all. I hope that in each of our unique circumstances we choose to rejoice in the fact that we are still here, alive and moving forward, and that is what matters! 

Valeria Saborio is from Costa Rica and is pursuing her Industrial and Systems Engineering degree at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno, Nevada.