Good Boundaries and Goodbyes:

Loving Others Without Losing the Best of Who You Are by Lysa TerKeurst

PLOT SUMMARY:

Good Boundaries and Goodbyes by Lysa TerKeurst is about creating and following through with healthy boundaries designed to preserve yourself and your relationships.  Stories, examples, and personal experiences show how real life boundaries function. The topic of boundaries is covered in a comprehensive way, contrasting both healthy and unhealthy boundaries. The need for boundaries, the cost of not setting them, and the most productive way to deliver them are detailed throughout the book. It reveals how to use boundaries to move relationships into health as well as an understanding of the goodbyes or losses that may come with healthy boundaries.

Good Boundaries and Goodbyes, which is written from a Christian perspective, illuminates the way to have boundaries with the grace and love of Christ while incorporating sound psychological principles from TerKeurst’s personal therapist. Chapters are filled with Bible verses and biblical examples of boundaries as well as notes from a therapist.

The end of each chapter contains the following:

A section from a therapist - offering a psychological lens

A section on how to practically live out the concepts in the chapter - offering a pragmatic lens

A model of a prayer for the topic - offering a spiritual lens

EVALUATION:

The combination of tying together the spiritual, psychological, and pragmatic truths about boundaries gives this book an incredibly balanced perspective. TerKeurst has found a way to integrate these three different lenses to create a thorough picture of healthy boundaries. 

Through encouragement and a true understanding of the pain and difficulties that arise without boundaries, TerKeurst relates to her readers with deep compassion and experiential learning gained from her own personal, heart-wrenching experiences. Furthermore, the soul-searching questions which she asks of her readers have them inspecting their true motives, fears, and desires. This interrogation of their internal landscape is absolutely necessary to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy boundaries. She also offers a comprehensive list to recognize the signs that readers may be in a dysfunctional dance with someone else. “If you feel you have to trade the best of who you are to protect the worst of who they are, do not ignore this red flag” (TerKeurst 90).

TerKeurst also incorporates some of the deep healing work necessary to create solid boundaries that are from a balanced stance rather than an extreme ultimatum. She explains that we all have coping mechanisms to deal with pain, and she teaches how to recognize what those are. “I’d had a lot of trauma and loss happen in a short period of time. So the thought of losing one more person panicked me. But becoming a people pleaser wasn’t the answer. No trauma is healed in a healthy way by developing unhealthy ways of coping” (TerKeurst 143).

THIS BOOK IS APPLICABLE FOR THE FOLLOWING:

-Readers interested in learning how to separate their identity from another person’s reaction.

“If you personalize an incident by attaching it to your identity, you’ll bear the weight of it like an unremovable scarlet letter…..Regardless, here’s what we shouldn’t do: attach their disappointment to our identity” (TerKeurst 125, 128).

-Readers interested in learning more about creating healthy changes in their lives. 

“Simmering in the frustration of knowing things need to change, or trying to get the other person to change, is way more damaging than a boundaries conversation” (TerKeurst 73).

-Christian Readers interested in learning more about how Jesus created and lived by healthy boundaries.

“He [Jesus] spoke the truth and respected people’s choices…controlling others is a primary sign of toxicity, not a method for ministry. Jesus never cheapened the beauty of what he was saying by appearing desperate. In fact, he pretty much took the opposite approach: this is what’s true: take it or leave it.” (TerKeurst 166). 

-Christian Readers interested in learning more about how to respond when others use verses to manipulate a boundary that was set, or when others say to “forgive and forget” without understanding the process of trust and healing required for close relationship.

“… I have made the choice to forgive you for the facts of what happened. And, at the same time, I am trying to understand the impact that all this had on me. When I am processing what happened, I’m not keeping a record of wrongs to use against you. I’m just working through the pain to get to healing…these boundaries I’m establishing aren’t a violation of Scripture, but rather a verification that I’m doing the necessary work that proper healing requires” (TerKeurst 143).

“God had grace but His grace was there to lead people to better behavior, not to enable bad behavior” (TerKeurst 45).