Sandcastle Boundaries

You know how when you build a sand castle on the beach you have to put up extensive barriers against your structure and the waves? Moats and walls because the ocean doesn’t know the sand structure from the rest of the beach and will mercilessly knock it down at first chance. You need an obstacle to block its path. However, on the sides that face the rest of the beach, you just need a little bit of a castle encompassing boundary. A small wall, perhaps to draw attention, but nothing more. A physical representation of the metaphorical “line in the sand.” Because other beach-goers will recognize the art piece and (most) will respect the desire for the castle to remain standing. Not all will, some have no guilt and love nothing more than to stomp in the sand and watch castles come crumbling down, but most will respect the boundary. Most have all drawn a similar boundary in times past, and either it was honored and they appreciated it, or it was disregarded and they remember the following pain.

Well, I’ve been learning a lot about boundaries lately. I am recognizing that, when growing up, I had very few. Up until even this past year. I was guarded, quiet, timid at times, and shy. I kept to myself and rarely opened up to my parents. Friends however, were a separate matter. I clung to friends like a drowning victim to a lifeguard buoy. I never sought to be popular, I only wanted a tight-knit circle with a few good girlfriends whom I knew would always have my back.

Looking back, I was putting faith more in man than in God and was likely expecting too much of others. I am by no means perfect, but I have always tried to be. It is this impossible standard I set for myself and one I measure by how well I can please others. I was raised to “see a need and meet it,” sometimes I fear I do that too well. I realize how often I try to meet the needs of others without considering my own. I called this selfless. I thought this was living like Jesus.

But it’s not.

Jesus met His own needs so that He was able to meet the needs of others. He had His time alone with the Father before He shared of Him to man.

My mom teaches CPR. “My Safety First” is a phrase she has drilled into the minds of her clients by the end of the class. It’s the analogy of when you are on an airplane and they tell you to help yourself before you help your loved ones. This is because once you are down, it’s a whole lot harder to get yourself, or anyone else, back up.

Thus, we need boundaries.

Boundaries: “a line that marks the limits”

I had no boundaries in friendships. If you asked something of me I would try to do it, no questions asked. I sought to always be “kind” the friend that was “too nice.” I held doors, gave compliments, extended the olive branch, offered advice, gave apologies, felt the need to make everything perfect. To keep the peace. And, as it turns out, this balancing act of everyone’s opinions, emotions, standards is exhausting. Not to mention my easy trust to strip bare the soul of my every struggle to people I hold closest left me spent and hurt when man fell short of my expectations. Man broke my trust. The first few times I brushed it off. But it became a pattern and I felt I kept getting knocked down only to be the one to stand up and offer the other person a hand.

And let me say right here, this is not me trying to say I am holier than thou or the victim of any relationship. I am not. I am just as broken as the person on my right and left and these let downs are my own fault for having non-existent boundaries.

However, after being hurt a few times too many, and with juggling a dozen other hurts and struggles in my life, I panicked. I had finally had enough. I was, am, tired of being let down. I realized I needed boundaries and I put up walls.

Let me tell you right now, walls are not boundaries. Walls are barriers.

Barriers are obstacles that block the path of others as well as your own, the moats we build around sand castles to fight against the waves.

Boundaries are guidelines to keep you both in check, the subtle walls built around a structure to let others know it is there, asking them to respect the treasure and not trample over it.

But I didn’t know the difference. I put up barriers and caused every bit of hurt others had dealt me back onto them, wholly not knowing. They felt I abandoned them. Used them. In reality, from my point of view, I was simply facing the perfect storm of a busy schedule, adjusting to a new season of life, and weariness of being hurt again.

And now I’m paying for it. Friendships I thought would last a lifetime seem to be crumbling like a landslide. I want to fix it, but not at the expense of myself. I am scared of going back to a people pleaser but I also hate feeling like I have a cynical, distrustful exterior. I feel spent and exhausted, tired of putting in the work if it won’t be reciprocated. But maybe I’m also not fully ready to let go, sit back, and watch these castles of my relationships be carried out to sea by the waves of life.

Where is the perfect balance? How do I gain back trust? What will it take to break down walls and re-draw boundaries?Am I too late? Is this what My Father has in store for me, or am I foolishly trying to gather up grains of sand He is calling me to relinquish to the waves and the wind?

I’m still figuring it out. My guess is that it all starts with my relationship with my Father, my relationship with His Word. My goal is to love and look like Jesus. Before He made the ultimate declaration of love He spent all night crying out in the presence of the King. My God, the Creator, the Father, the Perfect Friend. Why do I expect to be able to do any less?

If I want to live a “happy” life (happy being living in the peace and love of Christ) I need to surrender and try, to the best of my abilities, to live a holy life.

Holy in the way I approach the Throne and Scriptures. Holy in the way I carry myself. Holy in the way I treat others.

To do this I need boundaries. Not barriers. And not just any boundaries, Godly boundaries. Boundaries laid out in Scripture and followed by Jesus, the Messiah Himself.

I have come to realize that Godly boundaries are the key to long-standing, happy, castles in the great beach of life.