When dealing with negative thoughts or emotions in the context of any relationship, I imagine Jesus Christ Himself standing between myself and any person that contributes to whatever is going on inside me, for example when someone is in the process of actively offending me. Christ alone knows the true nature of that person's needs, not I. So I learned to pray Christ for the person even as I feel offended. This I find to be a very practical way to cope with whatever struggle goes on inside me about difficult relationships.

How do you cope with negative thoughts or feelings, as those arising in you when people are offending you? What advice would you give others? What suggestions would you make to help in this area? More specifically, what would you say to people who tend to not realize that whatever they feel and think inside of themselves belongs not to their opponents or the person offending them, no matter how harsh they might be, but belongs to us - the offended - and is dependent on what we do with what is said or done to us?

This article was inspired by interactions with a post dated December 25, 2017 on the Warrior for Christ FaceBook Group.