Boundaries and Walls |
You know, I've been thinking a lot lately about forgiveness. Yesterday after dropping that letter to my dad in the mailbox, do you know how I felt? Surprisingly (at least to me) I felt vulnerable. I realized that true forgiveness has a vulnerability to it, we are opening ourselves up to the possibility of being hurt again. But see, we can only be vulnerable if we don't have walls around our heart. Like we build walls to our homes, so we sometimes build walls around our hearts to "protect" us from the storms of life. And the truly hurt sometimes even have rooms within their walls, "big hurts", "small hurts", "lied against", etc. What we may not see however is that those invisible walls are not protecting us, but keeping others from truly knowing us and letting them inside. And any wall you have erected around your heart, also stops Jesus from getting in as well. God took this huge sledgehammer to my heart the other day at church and knocked down that stuff I held against my father. Thus why I feel so vulnerable now about seeing him in a few weeks (as we are sure he will accept the invitation to see the children perform). And no tie in, but boundaries. Boundaries are like fences around our homes. We have an area that is ours, and we don't want others to trespass. (and a rabbit trail here, Ariel was reciting the Lord's Prayer one day and when done Jessi asked her "what does trespass mean?" Ariel told her that trespass means that the person went somewhere that they weren't supposed to be! Wow! What a deep but simple meaning, trespass/sin is of course the person going someplace they shouldn't be!) We have boundaries in our marriages, "I won't tolerate adultery", "Be honest with me", and yes for some even "Please protect me". Boundaries with our children "Don't lie to us", "be fair", etc. Boundaries with parents, friends, co-workers. Some people don't like it when you set boundaries, they will accuse you of being a "controller" or control freak but don't fall for that. Boundaries don't equal control. They just don't like having to respect your boundaries and want to see if you are serious about setting the boundaries. Stick by your boundaries! And my last thought today, be careful that when setting your boundaries that you don't let them become walls around your heart. God loves you and so do I!! |
