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

by Lysa TerKeurst

Maybe the real core issue is that I fear there will be a devastating gap between what I think I need and what God will actually provide. Maybe I fear I must get from people what I am unsure God will provide for me. And if I fear God’s provision is incomplete, I must fill in that gap with other people or I won’t make it in this big, sometimes scary, often threatening, and always chaotic world. Therefore, I’ve made people the answer to my security rather than God Himself. Yikes.

if I have a need and I demand it from someone, that’s a sign that I’ve crossed over into wanting from them what I should be seeking from God.

But here’s what I’ve come to understand: God may be allowing that need in me so I will have the motivation to turn to Him.

God calls us to obey Him. God does not call us to obey every wish and whim of other people. God calls us to love other people. God does not call us to demand that they love us back and meet every need we have.

People pleasing isn’t just about keeping others happy. It’s about getting from them what we think we must have in order to feel okay in this world.

Grief doesn’t stay contained. It won’t wait for private moments behind closed doors. It will spill out whenever and wherever it hits us.

I wonder why the term is goodbye? What’s good about a goodbye that takes pieces of your heart you don’t want to see taken? What’s good about a goodbye that makes you wonder if you’ll survive the remembering? What’s good about a goodbye that’s impossibly permanent, that you didn’t want or ever anticipate happening?

Is there a way to let someone walk away from us without hating them? Is there any way for a bad goodbye to still be a “good” bye?

Trauma isn’t just something that happens to you. It happens in you.

Grief made me face my disappointment. Grief made me realize that my sadness wasn’t because I was wanting dead things to come back to life. I kept crying because my basic desires had never been given life in the first place.

I just want to know the right thing to do and I want doing the right thing to lead to predictable happiness.

all that you’ve already faced in your life has strengthened you to face what’s ahead with more resiliency and assurance that God will take everything and work good from it (2 Corinthians 4:17–18). You aren’t that same unsure and vulnerable girl today that you were ten years ago. You’ve allowed what you’ve faced to strengthen you instead of weakening you. You are wiser. You are more discerning. You are more assured of how to stay close to God. So, you’ll go with God more readily and see His goodness ahead more quickly.

As we better grieve the sorrows, we will soon receive our tomorrows with a little more healing and a lot more life.

The greatest joy in life isn’t when it all works out like we hoped it would. It’s when we experience the God of the universe pausing to reach us and remind us we aren’t alone.