Good Boundaries and Goodbyes: Loving Others Without Losing the Best of Who You Are

by Lysa TerKeurst

Boundaries aren’t meant to shove love away.

Good boundaries help us preserve the love within us even when some relationships

become unsustainable and we must accept the reality of a goodbye.

God’s ultimate assignment is for us to love Him and love others.

But we can’t enable bad behavior in ourselves and others and call it love. We can’t tolerate destructive patterns and call it love. And we can’t pride ourselves on being loyal and longsuffering in our relationships when it’s really perpetuating violations of what God says love is.

the purpose of this book isn’t to quickly call out issues in others without looking honestly at ourselves as well. We need to examine our motivations and our mindsets.

we also don’t need to swing the pendulum to the extreme where we stay in a destructive, toxic, or abusive relationship no matter what.

love must honor God to experience the fullness and the freedom of the sweetest connection between two humans.

Love does not justify wrongs to enable selfishness.

Love leads to honor, kindness, and compassion.

Love should be what draws us together not what tears us apart.

I know what it feels like to be paralyzed by another person’s choices that break your heart over and over and not know what to do about it. I know the frustration of saying something has to change but feeling stuck when the other person isn’t cooperating with those needed changes.

Show me how to approach my closest relationships with both compassion and a healthy commitment to reality so I am in alignment with You.

I had the wrong notion that to be a Christian requires that we believe the best no matter what. That it’s unkind to draw boundaries. That it’s noble and commendable to stay in a relationship no matter what.

I now believe we must honor what honors God.

when your life is so tightly woven into a collective fabric of a close relationship, it can be excruciatingly maddening to watch someone choose things you know are destructive. Though their choices are their own, the consequences have an impact on everyone who loves them, much like exploding hand grenades. You don’t have to be the one to pull the pin to be deeply devastated by the resulting shrapnel.

If you go with what they say, you’ll become more and more convinced you’re the problem. If you oppose what they say, they will make sure you feel you are definitely the problem.

most of us aren’t nearly as equipped as we need to be to know what to do when we know things need to change but the other person isn’t willing to or capable of cooperating with the needed changes.

But you’ve finally realized if they don’t want things to change, you cannot change them. And now you’re secretly starting to wonder if you are the crazy one. Friend, you may be brokenhearted. You may be sad. You may be afraid and possibly angry. You may be focused on trying to fix what isn’t within your ability to fix. And you may even be fixated on trying to figure everything out. But you are not crazy. If you are smelling smoke, there is fire. And the only reasonable option at this point is to either put out the fire or get yourself out of the fire.

Drawing boundaries can help put out fires before they become all consuming. But if the fire keeps burning with increasing intensity, you’ve got to get away from the smoke and flames. Sometimes, your only option is to say goodbye.

Chaos shouldn’t be the norm and while we can’t always change the source of the chaos, we must tend to what we can change. Please know: it’s not unchristian to set these healthy parameters. It’s not unchristian to require people to treat you in healthy ways. And for us to do the same for others. It’s not unchristian to call wrong things wrong and hurtful things hurtful. We can do it all with honor, kindness, and love, but we have to know how to spot dysfunction, what to do about it, and when to recognize it’s no longer reasonable or safe to stay in some relationships.

Because sometimes what is actually driving unhealthy behaviors in people is underlying shame or a lack of peace deep inside. Many times it’s both.

When things around you get out of control, you can call a time-out. You can remove yourself. You can seek others to help you process. You can get a plan. You can schedule something on your calendar to look forward to. All these things will help you avoid spinning in the unsafe feelings and circumstances that are causing you pain and confusion.

All relationships can be difficult at times, but they should not be destructive to our well-being.

Boundaries aren’t just a good idea, they are a God idea.

Where there is an abundance of chaos, there is usually a lack...

Heavenly Father, when the person who hurts me doesn’t see the heartbreak, tears, or emotions they are causing, I know You do. You remind me that I am seen and loved. I am not walking alone. As I start the journey of discovering how boundaries are not just a human idea, but Your idea, I know You will guide me every step of the way. Keep my heart tender and humble while at the same time steadfast and open to all You reveal to me. Continue to show me what You have for me personally in the pages ahead. In Jesus’ name, amen.

In other words, spurs multiply. Spurs not only won’t go away on their

own, but they tend to just get worse and worse. The source must be addressed.

when I tried to back off a bit, I was told I was giving too little and acting disconnected. Then I tried to do what she said she needed but her needs were constantly changing. And what about my needs?

When I tried to explain that some things needed to change, even my best points came out wrong. It had all sounded so rational in my head before the conversation, but then the emotion of the moment made me sound so off. I couldn’t keep up with the mental gymnastics. So, I wound up apologizing and regretting I’d brought any of this up.

When things were good, they were really

good. When they were nice, they were so nice. When they were fun, they were lots of fun.

But then an expectation she had would arise during a phone call or a lunch together or even in a simple text exchange, and I would know the cycle of chaos was about to return. It was as if I’d n...

Good, great, confusing, worse, much worse. Feeling bad about myself. Feeling bad about her. ...

We don’t want to get so consumed with the pain and chaos of unhealthy relationship patterns that we become a carrier of human hurt rather than a conduit of God’s love.

A hurtful statement can be called a mistake. But a repeated pattern of hurtful statements or uncaring attitudes or even unjust expectations is much more than a mistake. These patterns are misuses of the purposes of a relationship. Why is this so crucial to understand? Because

unchecked misuse of a relationship can quickly turn into abuse in a relationship. A recent Christianity.com article I came across sums up this dangerous progression so well: “Continued iniquity leads to irregular desires, which leads to a degenerate mind.

They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

Ongoing and unrepented sins still have consequences.

God offers all people love, but not all people will have access to life in eternity with Him. Why? Because sin separates.

Too much access without the correct responsibility is detrimental.

instead of feeling stuck because I can’t control the choices of the other person, I take control of reducing the access to the level of responsibility they are capable of. That solution is called a boundary.

if you don’t want details shared, you’ll have to reduce the access you give to the

more private aspects of your life. This may include deciding ahead of time what topics you are willing to talk about when you get together and not deviating from that decision

there is a big difference between difficult relationships and destructive relationships.

Love can be unconditional but relational access never should be.

Unchecked misuse of a relationship can quickly turn into abuse in a relationship.

People who are irresponsible with our hearts should not be granted great access to our hearts.

Above all else, guard your heart,