When love needs boundaries

 

Boundaries weren't always natural for me, not because I didn't value them, but because my heart is wired to love deeply, show up fully, and give people the benefit of the doubt.

When someone hurt me, my first instinct was never to pull back. It was to lean in harder. To tell myself, "I'll try again." To believe "maybe they didn't mean it." To convince myself that if I just loved them better, showed up more, gave a little more grace, things would eventually change.

And setting a boundary? That felt like giving up, like being cold. It was the opposite of everything I believed about love and faith. For a long time, drawing a line felt like it meant I wasn't Christ-like enough that a truly loving person would just keep going, keep forgiving, keep absorbing.

So instead of setting limits, I stretched. I stayed longer than I should have. I gave more than I had. I carried weight that was never mine to carry. And I called it love.

But I wasn't loving well. I was loving without wisdom. And there’s a difference.

God has been slowly shifting something in me through fire, and more than once. Because apparently, I needed to learn this lesson more than once.

I don't see boundaries the same way anymore. They feel less like rejection and more like stewardship. Less like giving up on people and more like finally taking seriously what God entrusted to me. My heart. My peace. My capacity to love well.

I've learned that I can love people without giving them unlimited access. I can forgive without reconnecting in the same way. I can be kind without abandoning wisdom. And I can set a boundary not out of anger but out of clarity.

Lysa TerKeurst's book Good Boundaries and Goodbyes gave me language for what I had been living without words for. I read it years ago. Life brought me back to it because the lesson wasn't finished. Truth doesn't expire. It waits for you to be ready to go deeper.

Boundaries aren’t me loving people less  they’re me finally loving in a healthy, God-honoring way. 

We think setting boundaries is something bad. Something harsh. Something that goes against love. But Lysa TerKeurst challenges that completely.

"The person who continues to break your heart isn’t in a place to properly care for your heart.”— Lysa TerKeurst, Good Boundaries and Goodbyes

That doesn't make them the enemy. But it does make one thing clear: they may not be capable right now of handling what you keep giving them.

“Love can be unconditional but relational access never should be.”- Lysa TerKeurst

Access is a privilege, not something owed. And when someone repeatedly shows they won't take responsibility for how they treat you, limiting that access isn't unloving. It's necessary.

A QUOTE THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING

“Adults inform. Children explain.”— Lysa TerKeurst, Good Boundaries and Goodbyes

Read that again. Slowly.

Because the first time I saw it, I felt it somewhere deep, as if it were describing something I had been doing for years without realizing it had a name. Explaining.

Think about how a child explains themselves. They're nervous. They're trying to make sure they're not in trouble. They watch the other person's face as they talk, adjusting their words based on how the reaction lands. They say more than they need to because they're not sure the first thing was enough. They apologize in the middle of their own sentence. They end with "...is that okay?"

Now think about how many times you've set a boundary or tried to and done exactly that.

You didn't just say no. You built a case for it. You gave the backstory. You listed the reasons. You softened it three different ways. And when they pushed back, you explained again as if the problem was that they simply hadn't understood you yet.

But here's what Lysa is cutting through: they understood you. They just didn't accept it. And you kept explaining because somewhere inside, you believed that if you found exactly the right words, they would finally give you permission to have the boundary you already had every right to have.

“You were looking for their approval to do what God had already authorized.”

An adult doesn't do that. An adult informs. They say: " This is where I stand. Not cruelly. Not coldly. But clearly. Without waiting to see if the other person agrees before they decide it's still true.

Their discomfort with your boundary is not evidence that you were wrong. It is evidence that the boundary was needed.

You don't have to over-justify your no. A boundary stated plainly with love, without cruelty, is enough. It was always enough. You just weren't told that.

But you are not a child anymore. You don't need anyone's permission to protect what God has placed in your care. You inform. You state it. You stand in it. And you trust that the people who truly love you will respect what you've said, and that the ones who don't are showing you something important all along.

I read this book years ago. Life just brought me back to it because I needed, once again, to draw a line.

The boundary was already set. They knew. And they crossed it anyway.

That's the part that cuts the deepest, not that they didn't understand. It's what they did.

I wasn't asking for perfection. I wasn't asking them to change who they are. I was asking to feel safe. In my own family. In my own space. With people who love me

And yet.

That's when I had to go back to what God says about this, not to justify myself, but to steady myself.

PROVERBS 4:23

“Guard your heart above all else, for everything you do flows from it.”

He didn't say guard it sometimes. He said above all else. Which means even here. Even with family. Even when it costs you.

But is this selfish?

I won't pretend the boundary came easily. Even after I set it, the questions came with it. Am I doing this out of hurt or out of health? Am I protecting myself or punishing them?

I don't think God minds those questions. He wants us to bring them. Because Lysa is right, this isn't just about managing what someone else does. It's about managing what's happening inside of us. The prayer before the boundary. The honesty before the conversation. The check-in with God before we open our mouths.

A boundary set from bitterness looks like a wall. A boundary set from wisdom looks like a door with a lock you hold, one that can open again when it's safe.

That's the version I want to operate from. Not perfect. But prayed over.

And here is what I've found: when you allow the Holy Spirit to guide you through it, something shifts. Your heart stops straining. Your mind stops racing through every worst-case scenario. Your soul finds a place to rest. Not because the situation is resolved. Not because the other person changed. But because you are no longer carrying it alone. You handed it to God and let Him lead the way.

That peace, the kind that doesn't make logical sense given what you're walking through, that is the fruit of being spiritually led. That is what it feels like to do this God's way.

Grace doesn't mean erasing the limit. It means setting it without contempt. You can love someone from a safer distance. God loves and is holy, always at the same time. So can we.

We must do what honors God.

Sitting with all of this, the violation, the anger, the questions, the peace that slowly came, I kept coming back to one thing. Not what felt right. Not what would keep everyone comfortable. But what would honor God? Honoring Him sometimes looks like saying no and protecting what He placed inside you, so that you have something left to give Him and others.

For a long time, I confused honoring others with honoring God. I thought if I kept giving, kept absorbing, kept showing up no matter the cost, that was Christlike. But I was confusing endurance with obedience.

“Boundaries aren’t for the sake of pushing another person away. They help hold me together.”— Lysa TerKeurst, Good Boundaries and Goodbyes

And a version of me that is held together can love better, pray harder, and give more freely.

1 CORINTHIANS 6:19–20

You are not your own. You were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

If my heart, my peace, my capacity to love are things God entrusted to me, then guarding them isn't selfishness. It's stewardship. It's saying, "Lord, I want to give You something worth giving."

Boundaries are not a self-help trend. They are God's idea. He modeled them. He commands them. Setting one with the right heart doesn't push people away; it protects the love you still have left to give.

I'm not writing this to seem more Christ-like than I am. I'm writing this because we wrestle with the pain, the anger, and the hard work of setting biblical boundaries while still dealing with real life. And I want you to feel that.

After everything happened, I didn't handle it perfectly in my heart right away. I prayed. I shared what had happened with my closest friend. I talked to my husband. I let the safe people hold their weight with me for a moment.

But even after all of that, after the conversations, after the tears, after the anger, I made a choice. I chose to continue trusting God with it. And more than that, I chose to thank Him. Because I realized: God protected me. He allowed me to see what I needed to see. He was looking out for me the whole time.

He knows. He sees. It is all in His hands.

And when you can rest in that, truly rest, the anger loses its grip. Not because the hurt wasn't real. But because you trust the One who is bigger than all of it.

If this had happened years ago, I would have reacted fully in the flesh. Consequences be damned. No fury like the version of me that hadn't yet learned to run to God first. But now? I locked myself in a room and prayed. Not because I'm perfect but because I've been through enough fire to know that God's voice steadies what my own reaction will only make worse.

That is growth. Not perfection. Not having it all together. But choosing differently than you would have before because God has been doing something in you, even in the seasons that broke you.

So when I tell you that boundaries are God's idea, when I say we must walk in a way that honors Him, I'm not quoting something I read and thought sounded nice. I mean it because I'm living it. I am not writing from a place of having arrived. I am writing from the middle of it, still healing, still choosing, still deciding every day to trust God with what I cannot control.

A truth I'm holding to 

I can love people without losing myself. I can show grace without abandoning wisdom. I can protect my heart and still honor God.

And the best part? With God, all of that is possible. Not just surviving the hurt but coming out of it as the best version of yourself. Whole enough to love well. Free enough to give fully. Real enough to show others that it can be done.

That is what boundaries make room for. Not a smaller life. A truer one.

If life has brought you back to this place, setting a boundary you thought you already set, protecting a heart you've already given too many chances, you are not failing. You are finally listening.  God has been saying it all along: guard your heart above all else.  And if you're in the middle of it right now, don't walk it alone. Sit with God. Talk to someone safe. Do the inward work. And if you need a place to start, Lysa TerKeurst's Good Boundaries and Goodbyes was that place for me, not because it has all the answers, but because it gave me the language to finally ask the right questions.  The boundary is only the beginning. What comes after, when you let God into the process, is where the real freedom starts.  You don't have to be healed to be obedient. You just have to keep choosing Him.  Choosing God every day looks like waking up and inviting Him into my mind before anything else because I know what happens when I don't.

A PRAYER

Lord, search my heart before I speak. Show me what wound is and what is wisdom.

Give me the courage to set boundaries even when it feels uncomfortable.

Let my limits be born from love, love for others, and love for the person

You created me to be. Help me extend grace without abandoning truth.

And teach me to honor You with every part of who I am.

A M E N

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