The 5th book in the Setting Boundaries® series from Harvest House Publishers will officially release Thursday, August 1. On that special book launch day, I’ll be giving away one free copy of Setting Boundaries for Women every fifteen minutes for three hours as I travel between this Blog and my Facebook Page from 11:00 to 2:00 (CST). Stop by and share your Setting Boundaries feedback, make comments, or ask me questions. Visit my website Home Page for more information.
In the meantime, I’d like to share some tidbits from Setting Boundaries for Women, Six Steps to Saying No, Taking Control, and Finding Peace. Tidbits that I hope you will find helpful on your journey to set or maintain healthy boundaries.
Many women live their entire lives unaware of how much better life could have been if only they had seen their need for boundaries and implemented them. Some women may neglect to set boundaries because the idea seems limiting, restrictive. But rather than restricting us, properly defined boundaries with others and with ourselves actually increase our freedom to be the women God designed us to be.
This is why boundaries can be so crucial. Boundaries properly set in place enable us to have control over our lives and our destiny.
“Control” is a word you’ll see often in this book. That’s because your goal in setting boundaries is to gain or regain healthy control over your own life whenever possible. Of course, sometimes you can’t control the unfolding panorama of external influences, circumstances, and situations. However, even then you can always control your responses and attitudes toward those circumstances as you also surrender them to God. That will be key to remember. You may not be able to control every outward influence or circumstance in your life, but you can control the way you react or respond.
Exercising this type of self-control with the help of the Holy Spirit is life changing. Women who passively accept the barriers that keep them from appropriately controlling their lives remind me of Proverbs 25:28—“Like a city whose walls are broken through is a person who lacks self-control.” Broken walls are like broken boundaries. The good news is that just as a city can rebuild broken walls, so too you can build the boundaries that will allow you to control your life and fulfill God’s destiny for you.
(Excerpt from Setting Boundaries® for Women, Six Steps to Saying No, Taking Control, and Finding Peace by Allison Bottke, Harvest House Publishers, © 2013. All rights reserved. Pages 13-14).
Dear Blog visitors, how would you respond to this question, “Can I still be a good Christian woman if I take control of my life?”