“Perhaps the greatest charity comes when we are kind to each other, when we don’t judge or categorize someone else, when we simply give each other the benefit of the doubt or remain quiet. Charity is accepting someone’s differences, weaknesses, and shortcomings; having patience with someone who has let us down or resisting the impulse to become offended when someone doesn’t handle something the way we might have hoped. Charity is refusing to take advantage of another’s weakness and being willing to forgive someone who has hurt us. Charity is expecting the best of each other.”  – Marvin J. Ashton

WOW! What an amazing quote….seriously! Love it!

It’s just such a good reminder of the kind of person we should want to be. All the things he mentions: giving others the benefit of the doubt or remaining quiet, and accepting differences, and having patience with someone who let us down…those can be really hard to do in moments of frustration or anger. And things like being patient and forgiving…can be hard to do when you might feel hurt yourself.  Yet the postive impact on our relationshps is tremendous if we do them. The return on investment is better than anything we could imagine.

I think the most powerful one he mentions is “expecting the best of each other”. That one thing alone could make sure a difference in all our relationships with one another. Just think about it – the next time we ask our spouse to do soemthing if we treated them like we believe that they will do a great job of it – holy cow can you imagine the positive impact that would have on a marriage??  Or when we are raising our children if we let them know we believe they are great human beings and we believe they will do the right things…can you imagine the positive impact that has on the child’s life.  Let’s even think about it in a business setting…if as a manager you go into every assignemnt you pass out to an employee with the attitude that you have every faith in their doing a great job, how motivating will that be to the employee to want to live up to your belief in them?

So many bad feelings and hurt relationships come about when people don’t expect the best of each other. Words are misinterpreted and actions are misunderstood. Rifts can exist for years and years over something that wasn’t really the case at all, and all because people didn’t give each other the benefit of the doubt in the situation. They didn’t go into the situation expecting the best from each other. I would guess that if both people had done so then the bad feelings and hurt relationships would never have had to happen at all…years and years of freindship could have been enjoyed instead of years of hurt and bitterness.

I love the advice in the quote today and it is something I am going to try harder to implement in my own life. Heaven knows that would make my husband happy :)…especially when I ask him to pick up two things at the store instead of just one…and maybe, just maybe, if I ask him believing he will remember both things, I will be pleasantly surprsied 🙂

~Amy