boundaries and friendships

Good friendships have boundaries...and I've heard it said that even God placed limits on how He would permit us to seek after him...

Boundaries can be good. 

I used to think having the friendship was the most important.  But I am learning that the boundaries are equally as much...

It would diminish God to let us approach Him in any way we wanted.  There is value in protecting what is worthy of respect.

It's amazing how, when those boundaries are challenged, rising to protect them increases my self-respect.

Maybe it's because I fear something terrible...fear that I'll cave, compromise, be completely appalled at what I find lurking deep inside me...

Those moments of decision, when the right decision comes out, are encouraging.  They remind me that that God truly is doing a redemptive work, even when I'm not aware He's doing it.

I had an opportunity to practice this yesterday.  It wasn't planned, but it happened, and to my pleasant surprise, I rose to the occasion.  I did the right thing.  I was respectful and calm, but unbudging on my stand.  What surprised me most of all was my willingness to let go.  To give this person the freedom to stay or go their way... True freedom.  With no strings, no anger.  Just the calm assurance that doing so was the absolutely right thing. 

C.S. Lewis talks about cockroaches...how they have a chance to hide if you sneak up slowly, but are caught out in the open if you flash on a light without warning.  So, he says, are those moments when we are caught off guard the surest sign of what lurks within us. 

I was pleased to discover yesterday that there was at least one less cockroach there than I had feared.

And with that came the assurance that maybe my life really is in good hands.  Maybe God really does have everything under control...

As the children's song goes: "He's still working on me, to make me what I ought to be..."  (that's actually the only line of that song I know from memory).

It just amazes me how sleepless nights and other challenges over the course of time can all work together into a master plan, a giant sculpture He has been putting together piece by piece with every challenge, every difficulty, every lesson that turned into a blessing...

Somehow, in the course of losing sleep and dealing with fleas over the weekend, my heart began to change.  In a strange way that I can't fully explain, I felt like a different person on Sunday night than I had when I went to bed on Friday.

Mysterious...yet effective.  Sometimes it takes an unexpected trial to bring the changes to light.