The woman? My mom.

Turns out she was a victim of sexual abuse for nearly a decade, but none of us realized that for awhile (it wasn’t until counseling that my mom would have the language to articulate what had happened to her). Some church folks assumed the pastor was up to something, so a guy hid a camera in the office when he’d been tasked to install a security system on the property. (Of course, for them, this was just an affair and they blamed my mom just as much.)

Anyway, the night I learned about it, me and a group of friends (including the pastor’s son) just bolted for downtown Orlando and wound up on the banks of Lake Eola, which is in the middle of the city. I felt like my entire world was coming down, someone I loved and trusted had betrayed me and my family, the person that had helped shape my own faith, and I wasn’t sure what was next. Even with close friends around, I felt almost cosmically alone.

Then there was some impulse. I believe it was God, your mileage may vary on that, but that impulse directed me to all the lights in the windows of the buildings. And I had the clearest realization that each “light” (as OP puts it) was a person and living a life. Maybe they were working late and wanted to get home. Maybe it was a boss sleeping with his secretary. Maybe it was someone having the best day of their life, or maybe the worst.

Whatever the case, I suddenly realized that I was not alone and that my problems were not as earth-shattering as they felt—at least not in a literal sense. And those lights almost seemed to blend into the stars above and I had a great sense of perspective. My mom and I would get through this.

Anyway, I know this random, but I’ve not seen anyone else talk about something similar before and this conjured a memory I return to often.