Finding Joy in the Most Unlikely Places

Realize: Common circumstances create automatic community.

Think about how much you have in common with the most random, unrelated person you run across in the grocery store today, just because you’ve both lived through this last pandemic year together. You may know nothing about each other, and your actual shutdown experiences might be different, but you have a shared experience of shock, uncertainty, worry and hope that can never be taken away. If you are both moms with young, elementary-school-age kids, you instantly know what each other’s lives have been like for much of the last year—and how little the rest of us get what you’ve gone through. And you know that without having to say a word.

Common circumstances create automatic community. On a very small scale, this is a bit why deployed soldiers bond. And it is why those going through cancer treatment bond, too.

People who have gone through breast cancer have told me over and over how sweet the community is among this group of people. How supportive and kind all the patients, administrators and medical people are to each other within the walls of the cancer center. And you know what? It’s true!

In the waiting room where I go each day for my radiation treatments, I see a lot of different faces, but everyone is so open. People talk and compare notes, “What day are you on?” “Did you do chemo first?” “How did you find out?” I don’t think I have ever seen that in a doctor’s office before. But here we are, with a group of other people who “get” what we’re going through. There is something precious—something life-giving—about this sense of brotherhood (or sisterhood, if you will!)

During any difficult time, find a community—those in the same circumstances who will get what you are going through. As I was writing my most recent devotional, Find Joy, one of the key solutions found in both science and scripture is being intentional in that way about getting connected and allowing others to be connected to you.