"The greatest thing any person can do for another is to confirm the depest thing in him, in her--to take the time and have the discernment to see what's most deeply there, most fully that person, and then confirm iut by recognizing it and encouraging it.
Each of us has contact with hundreds of people who never look beyond our surface appearance. We have dealings with hundreds of people who the moment they set eyes on us begin calculating what use we can be to them, what they can get out of us. We meet hundreds of people who take one look at us, make a snap judgment, and then slot us into a category so that they won't have to deal with us as persons. The treat us as something less than we are; and if we're in constant association with them, we become less.
And then someone enters our life who isn't looking for someone to use, is leisurely enough to find out what's really going on in us, is secure enough not to exploit our weaknesses or attact our strengths, recognizes our inner life and understands the difficulty of living out our inner convictions, confirms what's deepest within us. A friend."
Leap Over a Wall: Earthy Spirituality for Everyday Christians - Eugene Peterson
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