**We did a writing challenge at work a few weeks ago and I'm moving all the pieces back to my secret blog that isn't for coworker eyes.**

A few weeks ago, a very public figure died. He’d been dead for no less than 24 hours before people took to their computers and started sharing hateful messages about his legacy. His family was still processing his death and mourning his life, but people couldn’t keep their opinions to themselves for even just a few days. 

It really bummed me out. And It made me reflect on a lesson that’s been drilled into my head my whole life: Believe the best.

Backstory: I’ve grown up for most of my life in a church of some shape or form, but largely a nondenominational Christian church. I went to Lutheran school for kindergarten – where I got called out for telling a conversation heart-related lie to a teacher. After a few years in public school and away from church (probably not related to my lying streak, but who’s to say), we moved to Utah and picked back up on our church habit.

My parents listened to sermons in a rec room in Sandy, Utah while we had Sunday school down the hall in a racquetball court. Afterward, we all helped tear everything back down and put it in a trailer until the next week – all of us kids became experts in carrying folding chairs (which has surprisingly come in handy many, many times). Eventually, we relocated to a dilapidated old call-center-turned-church-building, where we played youth group kickball games in the basement and had concrete-floor overnighters and awkward teenage band practices, fumbling over our guitars and drums and etc.

I learned a lot of things, growing up in a church. Not all of them were great, but most of them were pretty good. Besides the obvious lessons from the Bible, there was the aspect of living in community, and learning how to serve and show up when you just wanted to stay at home.

Oh, and I learned a lot about how to make killer youth group video content. And by killer I mean cringeworthy.

Growing up, this is just what we did, and so naturally I kept doing it when I moved away to college, and eventually got married and started my own little family. It got me through a lot of hard things, but it was about much more than just that.

And then the past few years happened. Rather than go into all the boring details, I’ll give the Clif’s notes version: I began having a lot of questions about Christianity, and a lot more frustrations than I’d ever felt before. The way Christianity was playing out on the world stage was not the way I’d been taught to love Jesus. It was hateful, and it was scary. I wasn’t believing the best about the church, but the church wasn’t doing what I was taught was right.

I started questioning my beliefs, and the church that had influenced so much of my life. I knew and continue to know where I stand with my God, but I didn’t know how I felt about the church. I wrestled and very much continue to wrestle with some issues, but it’s all brought me back to that simple truth: believing the best.

It’s one of the most important things – again, save for the Bible – that I learned from all my years in church. My parents, my pastors and even my husband have spoken this into my lifetime and time again. What it mostly boils down to is this: Quit making assumptions. Trust that people are doing what they believe is the next right thing. Rather than being quick to judge, try and understand what might inspire someone to make the decision they did. Ask questions. And if someone did make a decision that hurt you, forgive them and move on, or find a solution.

I know that there is some incredible evil in the world, and it would be foolish to gloss over them by trying to “see the bright side.” There doesn’t always have to be a bright side. But, in day to day life, and for me, at least, believing the best is a start, because it means taking a step toward empathy. I’m not good at believing the best – I’m cynical and easily frustrated – but I can’t overstate how important it is that I continue to try. Because, at the end of the day, the wide world – my church, my city, my family, and even my office – is full of broken and hurting people. Just like me. So why not give them all the benefit of the doubt?

After all, it’s what I truly believe Jesus would do. I just lost that neon reminder bracelet years ago.