Dear friend,
Those who built the wall, and those who bore burdens loaded themselves; everyone with one of his hands did the work, and with the other held his weapon. Among the builders, everyone wore his sword at his side, and so built. He who sounded the trumpet was by me.
I said yes to hosting Thanksgiving for nine people last year when I had a four-year-old with a stomach bug and a work deadline the same week. Nobody made me say it. I just couldn't find the door out of the conversation fast enough, so I walked through the wrong one. I was resentful for a solid month and never told anyone why.
This week I keep thinking about how learning to set boundaries gets read as unkind, like the word itself is a fence with barbed wire on it. I had Nehemiah 4 open, the part where they rebuilt the wall with a trowel in one hand and a weapon in the other. Nobody called that wall selfish. It was protecting something worth protecting. A wall around a life isn't always cruelty. Sometimes it's the only reason there's anything left standing inside it to give to people at all.
I'm not saying build it perfectly. I built mine crooked and late. What is one yes this week you gave before you actually decided you meant it?
A prayer
God, she is tired of saying yes with her mouth and no with her whole body afterward. Give her one honest word today, and steady her hand while she practices saying it. Amen.