No longer having carpet in your bathroom. Losing a job, finding a calling. Listening to elk bugle. Planting a garden. Discovering dyslexia in a child. Moving out of your in-laws’ house. Game nights with married children. Rest and nature walks. Unexpected time with grandmother. Teaching kids to fish and not to panic. Zoom, for visiting, schooling, worshiping, celebrating, working.

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These are victories under any circumstances, but especially so under the murky, heavy clouds that 2020 forced on us. Here is proof that hope illuminated the darkness of even our worst days, in public, in the privacy of our homes, enough that we could see what mattered most, and still strive for it.

Circumstances forced us to slow down and observe, to question or strengthen our beliefs, to enrich or diminish our relationships, to search and discover our own souls in the midst of societal upheaval.

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Here are a dozen authors, experts and professionals in their fields, but not a household name among them. Here are 46 noncelebrities who somehow summarized their 2020 silver linings in 60 words or less. These are real people, real heroes in real life, who understand, first hand, that “adversity is the abrasive that gives the sharp edge to courage.”

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These are genuine, simple, substantial stories of courage in the face of profound, crushing darkness, ordinary men and women who responded with extraordinary mettle, faith, service, and good cheer, despite the odds, despite their fears, in their ongoing quest for deliverance, for mastering whatever the new normal turns out to be.