Charity edifieth

I've had so many things I've wanted to post about, but either haven't had the time or haven't made the time, take your pick. I'll still need to tell you about my experiences going out with the sister missionaries, but right now, I want to share something cool I learned as I took some time this afternoon to study my scriptures.
I decided to turn to the Bible Dictionary and read the definition of charity. I then looked up the first scripture listed with it, 1 Cor. 8:1. That's all I got to. I learned a lot from that scripture, or actually two words: charity edifieth.
When I think of being edified, I think of being spiritually filled. But, being linguistically minded, I was interested in learning more about the word. I looked at the footnote, which was an amazing start: builds up, strengthens, establishes, repairs. So charity builds up. Charity strengthens. Charity establishes. Charity repairs. Those are really interesting verbs that I haven't necessarily paired with charity.
It turned to the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) for some more guidance. Edify means to build in its oldest sense, although the religious sense of benefitting us spiritually was also around. But I've never given the term edify that meaning of building, strengthening, supporting, organizing, establishing (all OED definitions). Probably strengthening and supporting would fit my idea of it, but it definitely gave me more insight. And as I looked at all the verbs that go along with edify (and I looked at a lot as I looked at the meanings of each word), every single one fit what Christ has done for us. And charity is his love. Christ builds us up. He strengthens us. He encourages us. He repairs, or heals and saves us. He puts spirit, life, energy, and cheer into us. He establishes us. What does that mean? To render stable or firm, to validate, to confirm, settle what is weak or wavering, to restore to health, to give calmness or steadiness to the mind, to calm anger, to settle doubts, to secure. Does that not describe the role of Christ in our lives?
I really love this idea that not only does Christ do this for us, but we can work with him to do so as we strive to develop charity. We can build up others. We can strengthen others. We can establish others (see above definition again, it's good). We can repair too (favorite definition of that: to change oneself for the better). By developing charity, we can edify. And that is pretty amazing.