One of the hardest things, especially for women and/or mothers, is the guilt that accompanies making choices for our own well-being, choices that feel selfish. We are taught as Christians that we ought to make decisions that are Christ-like, loving and unselfish. And we assume that means that the greatest show of love is self-sacrifice, like Jesus, an emptying out of our entire beings for the sake of others.
Yet in setting boundaries, I can be who I am meant to be, to take hold of the things God has given me to do, and to let God do the rest. One of the best, and most surprising, parts of my journey toward better boundaries is that in giving up responsibility and in trying less hard at life in general, I am actually better able to give witness to my faith. I’m beginning to understand what God meant when he said to Paul, “My power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). When I confess my need for a force larger than myself to come and bail me out, it leaves an opening for God to show herself as the one most able to do just that.
This message is excerpted from “The faithfulness of boundaries” by Collette Broady Grund in the November 2022 Café online magazine. Today we commemorate missionaries John Christian Frederick Heyer, 1873; Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg, 1719 and Ludwig Nommensen, 1918.
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AMEN! If we could just stay within oursleves and do the best we can do and trust God to take it from there, our lives and world would be more content.