Let's look at another of our core values - GRACE: We suspend judgment and seek to understand.
Grace shapes how we respond when:
A family we serve or a volunteer communicates with a sense of urgency, even when we know the situation is not an emergency
We are coaching a volunteer through a situation in which they may need to extend some grace
Someone shares concern or feedback with someone who is not the appropriate person to address it with
A coworker’s words or actions affect us differently than they may have intended
In these moments, or any number of other ones, we can be compassionate without being pulled into someone else’s whirlwind.
We can remain loving while also maintaining healthy boundaries and professionalism. We can receive feedback without immediately defending ourselves, and we can respond to unkindness without returning it.
Often, our first reaction says as much about what is happening within us as it does about the other person.
Grace asks us to slow down, resist assigning motives, and consider what else might be true. We must suspend judgment and seek to understand.
We show grace when we ask:
Am I assuming the best?
What might I not understand?
Can I respond with both kindness and clarity?
Will my response move us toward understanding and connection?
Grace does not mean avoiding difficult conversations, excusing harmful behavior, or abandoning appropriate boundaries. It means that even when we must seek clarity, we remain gentle in our speech and curious about the person in front of us.
.....And we even need to have an overflow of grace for ourselves, because grace can often be hardest to give to ourselves (or wait, is that just me 😉😉).
This is how we live our core value: We suspend judgment and seek to understand.