Quotes about Boundaries

I reached a healthy place in which I was able to stop projecting my needs on another human being. We both came to understand that each of us is limited in our capacity to be for another what is needed, and learned to forgive each other for not being God.

Thus, discipline is the creation of boundaries that keep time and space open for God. Solitude requires discipline, worship requires discipline, caring for others requires discipline. They all ask us to set apart a time and a place where God's gracious presence can be acknowledged and responded to.

Friendship and love cannot develop in the form of an anxious clinging to each other.

When you get exhausted, frustrated, overwhelmed, or run down, your body is saying that you are doing things that are none of your business. God does not require of you what is beyond your ability, what leads you away from God, or what makes you depressed or sad.

When you heed only your lion, you will find yourself overextended and exhausted. When you take notice only of your lamb, you will easily become a victim of your need for other people's attention.

When people can cease having to be for us everything, we can accept the fact they may still have a gift for us.

Together, Yet Not Too Near When we try to shake off our loneliness by creating a milieu without limiting boundaries, we may become entangled in a stagnating closeness.

Forgiveness is to allow the other person not to be God. Forgiveness says, "I know you love me, but you don't have to love me unconditionally, because no human being can do that." [...] If we want other people to give us something that only God can give, we become a heavy burden. We say, "Love me!" and before we know it we become demanding and manipulative [...] To forgive other people for being able to give us only a little love—that is a hard discipline.

What does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook.

We have a nanny in the house, but there are always times when one of my kids does something bad or wrong, and they'll listen to me more than they do the nanny. So I think it's important to set up that boundary of respect for them at a young age, so they will know, 'I better listen to Mommy.'

Don't forget that the most effective form of child abuse is giving a child everything they want.

Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn't have the power to say yes.