For the most part of our lives, we feel that we’re the only one who feels the way we do. For example, maybe you’re going through a health challenge or financial hardship and every cell in our body is declaring, “Woe is me. Nobody has it as bad as me. I’m sicker, I’m worse off, nobody can possibly understand what I face every day.”
A global pandemic has a way of “leveling the playing field” however. Disease plays no favorites. If ever there was a time in our lives where there is a sense that others understand our lot, it’s now. There is a phrase, misery loves company. I’ve always used that phrase negatively thinking solely that unconstructive people like to hang around together and discourage each other. But I’ve come to realize that difficulty, challenge, and hardship draws people together. Another literary “meme” is also generally “true”, for every cloud there is a silver lining.
The silver lining is simple. Let your circumstances draw you to others in sympathy and compassion. The common apprehension that these changing times bring is a magnet to your relationship with others. Lean into it.
By the way, if you are a Christ-follower, isn’t this what the writer of the book of Hebrews says Jesus has done with us? For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Hebrews 4:15 Jesus identities with you and your trouble because He’s faced it.