Granting Grace
Susan Yates
 November 6
An empty nester told me about a difficult experience she had with her daughter-in-law. She had traveled from a distant state to stay with her son and his wife. Her relationship with this young couple had not always been easy. But she longed for this visit to be good and she determined she’d do everything she could to help them while she was in their home. Both the son and his young wife had demanding, exhausting jobs, so by the end of the day they were understandably tired.
After dinner my friend thought she could be useful by cleaning up the dishes and putting things away. Her daughter-in-law was busy elsewhere in the house while my friend cleaned the kitchen. She was so happy at the thought of being helpful to her son’s wife. However her cheerfulness was short lived as his wife came into the kitchen and realized that everything had not been put away in exactly the right place. Instead of being grateful she exclaimed, “Please don’t ever touch my dishes again. You did not put them in the right place.” The sharpness of her tone devastated my friend and she ended up making an excuse to return home early.
This is an all too common occurrence to which most of us can relate in some way. And yet there are several things we can learn from this situation.
- Don’t assume what will be helpful to another person. Their ideas of ‘help” might be very different from yours. Instead ask, “What jobs can I do that would be helpful to you? Is there a certain way you would like this done?”
- Be quick to assume the best of another person. What was my friend’s motive? It was to help. Ok, she did the wrong thing but her desire was to be helpful and that should be applauded not criticized.
- Overlook whatever you can. Life is too short to get upset about dishes or clothes put in the wrong place or . . . There are more crucial issues to be concerned about.
- Grant grace. We are all going to blow it, to make mistakes, to misinterpret one another, and to make a mess which we did not intend. We need a lot of grace and we must be quick to grant it.
It is always best to err on the side of granting grace. |
