Not long ago, I purchased my very first home.  Albeit it was a bit of a fixer upper, I was beyond excited to actually own something, even if it did need a little bit of work.  My experience in homeownership has been mostly good, but it has been filled with a lot of work.

 

Before I could even move in, work had to be done.

 

The walls of my new home were covered in smoke, so the walls and the ceilings all had to be redone and recovered.  There was an atrocious tan colored carpet that ran throughout the entirety of the house. Cutting it out was one of the highlights of the home ownership process.  By removing the old shag carpeting, I could replace it with new flooring: something that I liked– something that I picked out myself.

 

From there, I had to pull out all the carpet staples that were left in the floor.  I’m not great at estimating numbers, but if I had to quantify it, I’m pretty sure it’d be close to a million!  On my hands and knees, I picked staples out of the floor for night after everlasting night.  When that was done, we had to clean the baseboards and caulk them and paint.

 

Where I was once ecstatic to own such a large home, when it came to painting and worse— paying for paint— I was less than happy.  It seemed like no matter how much I painted, there was always more to paint.  Everything seemed to drone on and on, seemingly never getting closer to any kind of finish.

 

Finally, after what seemed like an entire lifetime’s worth of labor, the upstairs was almost ready to receive its new flooring.

 

In preparation for that, we had to finish the bathroom by resurfacing the walls and removing the toilet and vanity.

 

To preface the next part, I will say that the man who constructed this house had an extremely specific design idea in mind.

 

What that idea was, I am unsure of, but I’m sure he had one.

 

The house is a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house.  On the main level, you have the “Master Suite”, and although the room is large, it’s not the largest bedroom in the house.  Not only that, but it has the smallest closet in the house.  To put the cherry on the top of the cake, there is a bathroom right next to it, but there’s no entrance into the bathroom from the bedroom.

 

Essentially, it’s just a main level bedroom with an adjacent bathroom and a decent sized walk-in closet.

 

Maybe I’ve been spoiled over the years with larger walk-ins and true-to-fashion master bedrooms with the bathrooms attached, but regardless, I turned my nose up at the downstairs bedroom.

 

I figured that I had earned the right to have a private bathroom and the largest closet in the house, and only one of the bedrooms in my new house fit all of those requirements.

 

The largest room in the house, one of the upstairs bedrooms, has a more-than-spacious walk-in closet, partnered with a bonus closet that I will be using for shoes— because why not?  It also has a bathroom attached to it but with one catch: it is a Jack and Jill style bathroom that is linked to the second upstairs bedroom.

 

While it’s not the worst thing in the world, it was discouraging to know that I’d never truly get to have my own private bathroom.  Even though most of the time I would be the only person using it, whenever I had a guest over, I would have to share it.

 

Despite that, it still had everything that I wanted in a master bedroom.

 

Flash forward to the day when my workers came over to finish the bathroom.  As everything was being emptied out and the walls were being redone, one of the men who was working stopped and pointed out that the door leading into the guest room was separating from the jamb.  He said that he could fix it but that he’d have to completely remove the frame and start over.

 

Eager to see the door fixed, I agreed to let him do the extra work.

 

I watched as he removed the framing and trim from the door, and a thought crossed my mind.  Wondering aloud, I asked, “What would it take to put a wall up right there?”

 

The man working turned around and shrugged his shoulders.  “Not much,” he replied.  “Just some drywall and a few studs.”

 

Immediately, the gears in my mind started turning.  I could put a wall up.  I could have this bathroom to myself and finally have a complete master bedroom!  This would hit all of my wants for a bedroom.  Should we do it?

 

Excited, I told the man that I’d like the wall to be put up so that the bathroom would no longer be shared.  He started to make a plan and a list of supplies, and I felt my heart start to sink.

 

Not long ago, I took in a girl that needed a place to go.  I told her that she could stay as long as she needed to, and a beautiful friendship has since blossomed.  She moved into the room across from mine, and the plan was to finish the upstairs bathroom so that we could both use it instead of walking downstairs to shower and use the restroom.

 

She went on vacation, and while she was gone, I was planning on putting in the flooring and restoring both the bedrooms and the bathroom to their normal, functional manner.

 

I was planning on her having an upstairs shower and restroom and a finished bedroom when she returned home.

 

I was planning on her having something that resembles a real home, but then I decided that I wanted to put up a wall.

 

Although getting my own bathroom meant that she would now have her own personal bathroom, it still felt like I was abandoning her.  I didn’t want her to come home and feel like she had been completely cut off or separated from me— I just really wanted my own space and wanted her to have her personal space as well.

 

I wanted to put up a wall where there was no wall before, and I was afraid of how she would respond.

 

Although I knew that it’d be better for both of us, I was still worried.  I asked the worker to wait on the door so that I could think about it more thoroughly.  The more I thought though, the more that I felt the quiet urging of the Lord to put the wall up.

 

Finally, I told him to do it.  With the studs going in and the drywall going up, I had somewhat mixed emotions.  Fear of making the wrong choice kept my heart racing.

 

But as he screwed in the final piece of drywall, something unexpected erupted out of me: a fullness of joy.

 

As I saw that wall completed in front of me, I knew that I had made the right decision.  All at once, feelings of joy and relief flooded over me.  I profusely thanked the man who put up the wall and continued on.

 

Where there was once a hole, I filled it with a wall and now myself and my sweet friend would be taken care of in new ways.

 

At the end of the night, when all the help had gone home for the day and it was just me alone with my thoughts, I heard the Lord speak.

 

“Walls are not always a bad thing.”

 

Quizzically, I thought about that for awhile.  For so long, Christianity has been marketed to me as a “tear down walls” and “take away the barriers” kind of religion.  I was presented with a faith that said that walls were signs of illness and unresolved trauma, so they had to disappear in an effort to be more like Christ.

 

While I did believe in boundaries, I struggled to set healthy ones because of my misconceptions about what God had to say on the issue.

 

Because of that, my boundaries looked more like baby gates than they did walls.

 

When someone began to hurt me or take advantage, whether intentionally or not, I would set up a fence and attempt to say no.  But because my “no’s” were so weak, my fences were weak, and they crumbled in the face of pressure.  When my boundaries were crossed, I was left feeling taken advantage of and hurt, and the other person was left feeling iced out and cut off.

 

To me, “yes” was a love word and “no” was not.  From a young age, it was drilled into me that if I wanted to love someone, I had to say yes to them.  It didn’t matter if it hurt me or if it robbed me or if it left me broken, yes equaled love and no equaled hate.

 

So, in an effort to love people, my answer was always yes.

 

Because my answer was always yes, I got taken advantage of a lot.  I became a magnet for abusive relationships because my inability to set healthy boundaries and tell people “no” created a giant beacon above my head that alerted everyone in the area to my weaknesses.

 

Where I thought that I was loving people well, I was actually just enabling people to stay in their toxicity while I suffered from their abuse.

 

We all lost— me and the people that I was in relationship with— all because we didn’t have healthy boundaries.

 

As I was sitting at my table at the end of the night, I really meditated on the wall metaphor for a long time.  In terms of applicability, it made perfect sense.

 

What I had grown accustomed to: setting up partial boundaries and baby fences that were flimsy and weak– it was doing me no good.  It wouldn’t have made sense for me to build the wall halfway up and then stop.  If I did, anyone could look in at my most vulnerable moments and they would be left feeling embarrassed and I would be left feeling exposed and ashamed.  Building only half of a bathroom wall seems like nonsense.  For privacy and for protection, you build complete walls to keep all parties safe.  Boundaries are no different.

 

Where “no” can feel like separation and a wall going up, it’s actually for the protection of all people involved.  When I am at my max and don’t feel like I can handle any more, saying “no” means that I will not be loving someone in a sub-par or resentful way.  Because I set a boundary, I protected my mental health and my rest, but I also protected the other person from being the object of my resentment or for receiving work that was halfheartedly done.

 

Moving forward, I would be able to help only when I had the capacity to, and they would be able to receive the best possible help— the help they truly deserve— whether it came from me or someone else.

 

When we set up healthy boundaries and walls, when we do it with the right heart and right motive, joy and excitement and appreciation for personal space will come.

 

Now that my physical wall is up, my friend never has to wait on me to finish getting ready in the bathroom. She won’t ever have to dance around while she waits to use the restroom because I am using it at the moment.  We won’t ever have a reason to resent each other because that one boundary line made it possible for us both to personally have our best possible scenarios played out.

 

Where I used to see a separation, now I see an opportunity for us both to grow and flourish with our own spaces, and all while we’re still living under the same roof.

 

A wall went up, but we still stayed in the same house. A partition was made, but it was something that was meant to keep us together, despite it looking like it was keeping us apart.

 

Sometimes, saying “no” is a love word.  Sometimes, building a wall is the right answer.  It can feel conflicting, and more than that, confusing, but it’s true.  When we need time alone and away, we shouldn’t be ashamed.

 

Jesus had boundaries.  He went away and He went away frequently.  He said “no” on occasion because He understood that in order to love people best, He had to be His best, and He was only His best when He set boundaries and had space and time to Himself.

 

Your boundaries will not break anyone.  They won’t damage a relationship beyond repair.  When done right, walls can help heal.  They can give new life and new purpose to an old relationship.  When done with the right intentions, everyone wins.

 

So let this be your encouragement to set up the necessary walls.  Let this be your encouragement to stop saying “yes” out of obligation and start saying it only when your “yes” can truly be a yes.  Let this be your encouragement to draw a boundary line in the sand and start loving others and yourself in the best way possible.  You are all so worth it.