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Jeannie, first, it brought a huge smile to my face to read about how accepted Jonathan is at your church, when you read and hear about the opposite on so many occasions. Next, I really appreciated reading about anger and boundaries. For me, I have allowed others to cross my boundaries and instead of allowing myself to feel the anger I instead beat myself up, telling myself that I should give that person grace. Don't get me wrong I do believe in giving grace and forgiveness, but my mistake was suppressing what I was feeling. Thank-you for your honest post and for references to quotes and books I will definitely be reading.

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Thanks so much for this response, Melinda, and I'm glad the post spoke to you. I totally get what you're saying on all points. As Sarah Bessey says we get "discipled" in hiding our anger. And when we think (or are led to think) that God doesn't want us to even feel it, that's really hard to overcome.

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Oct 28Liked by Jeannie Prinsen

food for thought - thank you Jeannie

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Thanks so much for reading and commenting, Dawn.

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I love this. I love the humor you brought with Jonathan's "NO THANK YOU!" before getting to the more serious matters. I also really love the church you attend creates space for him and lets him be a part of the prayer with his comments. That is beautiful. Too often we hear boundaries against that and no boundaries on the issues you talk about learning to create. I think in learning boundaries we are also learning what never needed a boundary.

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Very true, Lindsay. We as a society often have very confused ideas of where boundaries should lie.

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Yes!

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Oct 28Liked by Jeannie Prinsen

The freedom of No and Yes. It took me a while to learn those.

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I hear you, Tim.

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Oct 28Liked by Jeannie Prinsen

Thank you for this, Jeannie.

It is so timely for where I am at in my life stage right now...

I needed to read this and be reminded that my feelings of anger due to boundaries being crossed are legitimate, healthy, and worthy of paying attention to.

Such a helpful and relatable topic and thank you for looking into the context of Gennon Doyle's quote.

Keep writing more posts!!

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Thanks so much Julia. I've read Doyle's book Untamed but I don't own it, so I had to rely on Goodreads quotes for a bit of context. :-) I think the context helps, and that image of anger "delivering" boundaries to our door is pretty powerful.

Yes, your anger is legitimate and I think God feels it too.

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Oct 28Liked by Jeannie Prinsen

'Full confidence in our belovedness and worth' often seems like a moving target; perhaps 'confidence' is more a process than a state? And boundaries can shift, too? I so enjoy your musings, Jeannie, and am grateful to you for sharing.

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Oh, for sure, Anne! That assurance can ebb and flow and our boundaries do often need to be flexible. Thanks so much for reading and adding these other angles to the conversation.

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