Returning to Joy in the Middle of Tragedy
In November 2013 tragedy struck my hometown of Washington, Illinois. An EF-4 tornado, with damaging winds reaching 190 miles per hour, destroyed over one thousand homes and created nearly a billion dollars in damage. Twenty percent of the town was destroyed.
At the time of the tornado, my wife, Jen, and our young sons were at church, along with our friends Steve and Lori. Everyone at the church went to the basement when the sirens sounded and stayed there until it was safe to leave. Once they were given the all clear, they drove home.
Jen and the kids arrived home safely. But as Steve and Lori pulled into what was left of their neighborhood, they discovered that their house was gone. The area looked like a battlefield, with debris lying everywhere. Trees were toppled, homes destroyed, and all signs of familiarity completely eradicated.
I was out of the country when the tornado hit. When I came home, I returned to a shattered community shocked by the trauma of the storm. While our house sustained minimal damage, I was devastated to learn that others in our community, including Steve and Lori, were not so fortunate. Together with members of our church, my family helped Steve and Lori gather what few belongings could be salvaged from the wreckage of their house.
This was a profound tragedy, and I grieved for my friends. At the same time, I observed how the community came around one another and pulled together to support those who had lost their homes. What stunned me most, though, was watching up close how my friends weathered the storm’s aftermath.
Returning to Joy Builds Resilience in Hard Times
I was with Steve a lot during this time, and he remained his usual relational self. He felt his emotions, certainly, and he shared them. He labored tirelessly to save what he could from the remnants of his house. But Steve did not allow the stress of the situation to steal his joy. He continued to be kind and compassionate and encouraged his neighbors who were in the same situation he was in. He prayed with people, offering wisdom to those who were trying to bring order to the unexpected chaos of their lives. He remembered that God is good, even when tornadoes destroy houses. Steve was genuinely grieving and processing this tragedy, yet he was also diligently caring for himself, his wife, and their daughter and son-in-law, who had lost their home in the disaster as well. I would have been tempted to throw in the towel and curl into the fetal position. Yet my friends persevered.
I was astonished by how well both Steve and Lori handled this disaster with grace, joy, flexibility, and peace. Amid hardships, they remained grateful and relational. They drew from the deep well of joy in their lives so they could hold on to their blessings and help others, even as they grieved their own losses. While this event was not something they would want to repeat, Steve and Lori were the picture of resilient strength in hard times.
As I witnessed their resilience, I thought, That’s the kind of person I want to be.
I don’t think I’m alone in that. I think most of us want to be that kind of person. We don’t want to lose our cool when life’s circumstances and the big emotions that arise from them threaten to overwhelm us. Instead, we want to be resilient, to remain loving and kind despite challenges, opposition, fatigue, upsets, and hardships. We want to suffer well when life takes a turn. We want our character to shine even when we’re facing darkness, to experience our emotions without being ruled by them.
Why Relationships Matter for Returning to Joy
We want this for our own well-being, but we also want this for our relationships. We want to be the kind of people others can count on. Relationship problems are a top reason people seek therapy.1 Research tells us that stable, healthy relationships are foundational for well-being and longevity. People with friends are more satisfied with their lives and less likely to suffer from depression.2 People with meaningful relationships are less likely to die from heart issues and chronic disease.3 Study after study shows that relationships provide social support and predict well-being across the lifespan.4
We crave relationships, but when our strong emotions overwhelm our capacity to manage them, we enter a state called “enemy mode,”5 where we view others as threats to be managed rather than as fellow humans to delight in. When we are in enemy mode, as the name suggests, our relationships suffer. We need a way to remain our best, relational selves even as we face difficulties. When we are relational, we value connecting with others in meaningful and satisfying ways. We remain flexible as we express our true hearts and values with tenderness, care, and compassion. We experience what we feel while also staying aware of what others are feeling. We love well.
The Key to Resilience Is Joy
The key to being this kind of person is joy.
Joy arises when people are glad to be together. Joy shows on our faces, is heard in our voices, and is displayed in our mannerisms, gestures, and responses. Other people can tell when we’re glad to be together, because joy is inherently relational. Our brain is wired for joy, where we are the sparkle in someone’s eyes, and they are the sparkle in ours. Think about a time your eyes lit up to see someone and their eyes lit up to see you. That felt great, didn’t it? That’s the default setting we were meant to experience as God’s creatures.
Relational Joy Strengthens Our Lives
Relationships anchored in joy are how we experience satisfaction and meaning in life. When our relationships are strained and joy runs out, we feel empty, depleted, injured, overwhelmed, even consumed. Relational, glad-to-be-together joy is the key ingredient that touches everything that matters to us.
God Designed Us for Returning to Joy
God designed our brain to run on glad-to-be-together joy. Any time we lose our joy, pain and problems intensify. But just as God designed our brain to run on joy, he also designed us so our brain can return to joy from upsets, strain, conflicts, and overwhelm. The good news is, because God designed us this way, we can be tethered to glad-to-be-together joy no matter what’s happening in or around us. And what’s more, we can learn skills that help us return to that joy when big emotions threaten to overwhelm us. We don’t have to be stuck in a life without joy. We can grow in joy and develop the skills necessary to return to joy.
1. “Psychotherapies,” National Institute of Mental Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, last reviewed February 2024, https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/psychotherapies.
2. Karmel W. Choi, et al., “An Exposure-Wide and Mendelian Randomization Approach to Identifying Modifiable Factors for the Prevention of Depression,” The American Journal of Psychiatry, 177, no. 10 (2020): 944-954, https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2020.19111158.
3. Julianne Holt-Lundstad, et al., “Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review,” PLOS Medicine, July 27, 2010, https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316.
4. Christos Pezirkianidis, et al., “Adult Friendship and Wellbeing: A Systematic Review with Practical Implications,” Frontiers in Psychology, 14 (2023) https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1059057; and, Rosemary Blieszner, et al., “Friendship in Later Life: A Research Agenda,” Innovation in Aging 3, no. 1 (2019), https://doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igz005.
5. Dr. Jim Wilder is the source of the different versions of enemy mode. Learn more with Wilder and Ray Woolridge, Escaping Enemy Mode: How Our Brains Unite or Divide Us (Northfield Publishers, 2022); Wilder and Michel Hendricks, The Other Half of Church: Christian Community, Brain Science, and Overcoming Spiritual Stagnation (Moody Publishers, 2020); Wilder, The Pandora Problem: Facing Narcissism in Leaders and Ourselves (Deeper Walk International, 2018); and Coursey, The Joy Switch: How Your Brain’s Secret Circuit Affects Your Relationships—And How You Can Activate It (Northfield Publishing, 2021).
Adapted from What to Do with What You Feel: How to Return to Joy When Life Overwhelms, Relationships Hurt, and Circumstances Don’t Go Your Way by Chris M. Coursey, releasing in February 2027 from Tyndale House Publishers.
Copyright information for photo: Author photo by Cara Williams, Awakened Images, copyright © 2025. All Rights Reserved.
