While G-d orchestrates everything that happens in our lives, He doesn’t intend that we stay stuck in any unhealthy patterns in our lives. He wants us to be free of them. To grow and change. Be healthy. Happy. Free to live life more abundantly. Until we get there, He carefully preserves His own, so I am among the blessed who don’t look or love like what I’ve been through, especially while I didn’t know a thing about boundaries and remained on the continuum of familiar hurt and pain patterns because I gave those broken vessels access and permission to keep me, “going through”. That’s a mouthful! Like so many, He’s preserved me to smile like I’ve never known every kind of pain. Kept me open to love like someone who’s never experienced love AND rejection as equals on the same spectrum. Given me stability and peace at home after overcoming displacement and homelessness as a direct result of loving the broken without boundaries in place to protect me.
I live and love from a safe place now, always making conscious decisions about who does and does not get “in”. Without fail, those firm, consistent boundaries keep me safe from toxic relationships with every kind of stability in my life. I’ve never been happier or enjoyed more peace. Let me share a story. I was supposed to die, become a quad- or paraplegic, the night G-d saved me. That traumatic injury and amazing orthopedic rebuild ultimately left me with metal parts, less than 100% function and a body now disabled. Couldn’t work or drive. Relearned all daily functions from getting out of bed to bathing to meal prep without injury. Benefits I paid for all my life took years when I needed them right away. Meanwhile? Displaced, followed by the literal trauma of homelessness, but that’s for another day. The beauty from ashes is that G-d uses everrrrything! Once back in Mass, I received excellent medical care. He kept me sane, safe from harm, speaking of His goodness, trusting Him, loving others and wrapped in His peace like I wasn’t moving through the horror of it all. He showed up disguised as friends who ensured there was a roof over my head and a bed under my broken body every night and day. To this day, I hold each one in such sacred places in my heart.
I found the perfect place online. Scrolled through the pics as The Spirit in my belly and every cell in my body immediately knew this one was mine! Because someone had inadvertently locked an additional lock, my broker and I couldn’t get inside for our first two tries to tour the place. Because we kept coming back, I got 3 opportunities to experience the peace that welcomed me every time we turned onto that tree-lined drive. Peace settled over the property, permeating the atmosphere and resonating with my every breath there. The sky seemed bluer above the snow-covered greenery and I felt a healing calm. Even in the middle of our worst winter, I knew this was where I was supposed to be. Why was it so quiet, and was like this all the time? I told my broker someone had to have spoken a blessing of peace over this land.
With a window in between non-stop snowstorms, the movers arrived. At the last minute, the listing broker forwarded the past due condo docs. I told my movers to load my desk, chair and printer last as I printed and reviewed the equivalent of closing docs. Buried in them, answers appeared on more than a page of clearly defined noise restrictions. “If your windows are closed during the day and your neighbors can hear your conversations or your television…If it’s after 10pm at night and your neighbors can hear…”, you get the drift. To move in, I had to sign a commitment to maintain the quiet…and that communal peace. I smiled, willing to adjust all my sometimes loudness (laughter, friends, dinner parties, occasional Spirited bursts of singing and love of playing music) to protect OUR peace! I couldn’t sign fast enough!
Boundaries maintain the peace in this slice of heaven, and boundaries will maintain the peace in yours. We have it because we are like-minded in how we want to live. We have peace because we ALL want peace. What I do for my neighbor, my neighbor does for me. If one of us isn’t on the same page, there’s no peace for any of us. Somebody’s hearing me today. Listen, your space is precious. Two will never have peace if only one of you wants it! If you love a vessel of strife with all your heart, your love won’t keep their war from invading your peace! To enjoy peace, you’ve got share your life with similar spirits who can, already practice peace and will bring theirs into your space. Not strife. Not war. If they can’t or won’t…Set. Up. Boundaries.
I’ve spent decades learning about setting boundaries in love. The more mistakes I’ve made, the better I’ve become at defining and maintaining them. What’s key has been learning to love Kena enough to abide by my agreements with and for myself. You don’t have to agree with any of my boundaries for me to sweetly enforce them. G-d believes in boundaries, and He loves ALL of us. I’m with Him. I need them to navigate sin’s dysfunction down here, and you do, too.
We’re all imperfect and have some measure of narcissism. Our first enemy is SELF. But when brokenness and self-absorption keep us from seeing anyone else, disrespect and disregard can become abuse. And we’re not roadkill, but royalty, loves. Any kind of abuse is simply unacceptable. Any noise that tears you down, doesn’t see you, or is outright violent physically, emotionally, sexually, financially or to your spirit? Time for boundaries to protect your health and your peace. Set them just like G-d does with us in His mitzvahs and commands. They look and sound like this:
You can’t abuse me for any reason. Not because I love you. Not because I’m loyal to you. Not because we’re in relationship. Not because we’re family. Not because we work together. No because we live together. Not because you sign my paycheck. Not because we’re neighbors. Not because we’re married.
It’s never acceptable, loves. Be like G-d: set loving boundaries. Let’s use the authority Yeshua gave us to bind up on earth what is not allowed and loose on earth only what will be allowed in heaven. Lovingly bind up relationships gone wrong, and lose, embrace and nurture relationships gone right…even when they don’t look like we thought they would.
Trust your gut: Maya’s right. The first time someone shows you who they really are, BELIEVE them. You are not beholden to them, to me…or anyone else down here: only to G-d. And be confident that you will never lose anything, because we serve a G-d who owns everything and is constantly orchestrating and providing what you need!
When we walk away from the noise that is not of Him, that robs our peace, we free ourselves from chains and prisons. We walk away from stress and inflammation, the root of all disease. We experience life more lavishly. Sometimes He requires we leave before He’ll release His next blessing. That’s to protect us. Ask me. I know.
Without the blows of toxic behaviors, the peace is amazing in the safe spaces created by boundaries! Just change the access from always or frequently to occasionally or rarely, and still care and pray for them while you enjoy your health, stability, peace and a more abundant life. Love doesn’t mean ongoing exposure or access to harm. Love is just love, and distance doesn’t stop it.
Now I relax with my ankles crossed and flex my toes, because the less is so much more! I certainly still love them once my boundaries are in place…just from a freeing distance.
It’s why children are happiest when parents put them in place: boundaries feel amazing!
Kena Drumgo 