Making Fun or Celebrating the Difference?

I feel like a teenager screaming at my parents, "You just don't understand me!". There is a huge difference between making fun, correcting, insisting that everyone look, act & talk the same verses taking note of differences in people and celebrating those differences. If you point out uniqueness in a person as an attempt to degrade or make a person feel bad...Shame on you! If you point out that difference in order to edify and celebrate the uniqueness with which that person has been created and shaped by God than that is awesome.

Now, I recognize there is a perception issue. Despite our best intentions people may perceive us to be 'teasing'. So we must be careful that the result of our words always build up (Eph 4:29). The command in Eph 4:29 is not to have proper motivation. The command is for the results of our words to have the effect of building up.

All that to say if I every say anything that makes you feel torn down rather than built up...Tell me...I'll stop. At least I'll try. Some habits are hard to break.