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| Photo by Valera Vulfson |
I have found myself more than ever trying to balance the delicate task of love and boundaries. It is easy for me to love, easy for me to understand people's pain, easy to get consumed in their needs and forget my own. And yet, I am finding the more that I mature the more I realize that giving people strong boundaries is loving them. Tough love is honest love, and is what I was given on many fronts as a child, and the things I didn't understand when I was younger are the things I am grateful for now. Boundaries cause growth and depth. Jesus was way ahead of the game years ago when he said we must teach a man to fish, instead of giving him a fish, and this is my method now with loving. Help people who are ready to help themselves. We can love, we can support, we can give, but at the end of the day they must do the work to be who they want to be. We are not helping them or ourselves by pouring tons of energy into people who are not ready for whatever reason, and we are not helping ourselves, we get taken off our own path and our purpose. So, I agree it is entirely possibly and necessary to love and not tolerate bullshit at the same time. It is a must for real love.
