Pragma: Stand in Love

    As long as we live there will always be people in this world who can not, and often times refuse to see past themselves. People who can't see past their wants and stubbornness to lend a helping hand, kind word or even a smile to brighten someone else's day. People who, no matter what is going on in your life, they find any and every reason to turn situations around in their favor and somehow always become a victim. But they will swear up and down that they are not a "victim" and they don't act that way. What do we do with these people? Our flesh would want to turn our backs on them, let them suffer, wallow and fend for themselves. But for some odd reason our hearts just won't let us do such a thing. So what do we do? We can pray which is the normal "Christian" answer. But sometimes prayer isn't enough. Now don't misinterpret me, prayer is always a good thing, absolutely awesome. In prayer is where we can find peace and seek wisdom and understanding. But sometimes we need a little bit more than just prayer because when you come up, that person/people is still there. 
    That's where my term "Stand in Love" comes in to play. In my research, I learned that the greek word for my term is the word "pragma". Pragma is all about patience and compromise and is the most mature type of love. It is easy to love someone when things are going great, but "pragma" love is the ability to love when things are not so great. We have to have the willpower to Stand in Love, no matter what is going on. Standing up for yourself as a Christian does not mean being nasty, mean, rude nor hateful towards others. That's actually the opposite of what I am talking about. But being a Christian is never a thumbs up to allow other people to run over you and treat you less than. Standing in Love, to me, is putting your foot down firmly but in a way that has the other person to know that you still love them, will be patient with them, are willing to compromise and are there for them. But that you're absolutely not there to be ran over, misused or abused.  
    When I encounter people who try to abuse the goodness of my heart, I have to remind myself to pragma: Stand in Love. And then I usually say that they don't know any better. Lol. I used to be one of those people who just accepted anything that others decided to give me because I didn't want trouble. But I learned along this journey called life that people will only treat you the way that you allow them to treat you. Just allowing people to treat you any ole way and accepting it will do more harm to you than it will to them. I learned this through my life experiences. We have to be careful to not become inwardly bitter and resentful towards people all in the name of just taking it and not wanting trouble. We need people in this life and just taking it will have us building up walls and forcing GOD's children to climb, leap over or dig under them to get to us. This can not be and is not how GOD desires us to be with one another. Besides, it is through people that GOD works some of His greatest miracles. So we have to train ourselves to pragma: Stand in Love. This can be a very trying thing for some people, but like anything else in life wealth, a good body, a good marriage, good grades, you have to work for it. And we usually work for those things that we want no matter what we have to go through to get it, so why not this? So Pragma: Stand in Love. 
Unapologetic is me, L.