I like the way you post. You seem inspired by stories around you. This is something I look for in psychological posts. A litlle bit of human in psychology. sometimes it is missed.

The story of your mother's friend seems to be very postive. I can tell similar stories f people I know. But something came to my mind in the middle of your post. Also your thoughts about more secular world nowadays inspired me to thing about... PTSD and Post Traumatic growth.

Posttraumatic growth is evidence for everything you wrote down in your post. I mean that you are going to be upset with your life without some factors in it and you will be happy after turbulences when you have some factors in your life. PTG is a little bit diffrent. It shows us that some traumatic events can cause in people will to look for theese factors. To create them by themeselves. It is also called benefit finding and the name for it says a lot! It comes also from buddism, hinduism, christianism. in ancient times people belived that negative experience can lead us to happiness. It is not so secular point of view.

Inspired me again. Thanks Abigail!