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

by Lysa TerKeurst

You’ve reached a place where you know you can forgive the person. And you can love them. You want to save the relationship and get to a better place more than anything. You’ve made changes. You’ve listened to wise advice and done everything you know to do. 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.