Hi SUMites

Today we are wrapping up our series on boundaries. How about today we take a quick whistle-stop tour of where we've gone with this topic?

Ok, let's go!

In part one we talked about the fact we walk a two-pronged approach in our spiritually mismatched marriages. On the one hand, we throw ourselves into LOVING our spouse generously, but equally we stand up for certain non-negotiables.

In other words: We set certain boundaries in our marriage, where we don't allow our spouse to take certain important things away from us. That might sound tough but I believe it is a critical part of walking out a spiritually mismatched marriage well.

We talked about what kinds of boundaries are important to set. Here's what we agreed:

• We must hold onto our oil! That is, we fight to keep the Holy Spirit bright in our lives.
• We fight to have our personal time with God, regularly.
• We fight to attend church.
• We insist that we share the Gospel freely with our children.
• And we know that if we do the above things -- That is, if we're brave to stand our ground on the above key issues -- God will reward us for it.
• Finally, we ask our spouse to respect our faith, and if there is too much disrespect, we stand up to that.

But with all that said, there's an important boundary that we, in turn, must respect in our spouse's life, and it's this: Honor their free will, and do not override it.

Well, that concludes our series on boundaries. My friends, there are a number of books on boundaries in marriage -- And while our series on this blog looked specifically at SUM-related issues, there are wider areas of marriage that call for boundaries. For example, it might be important in your marriage to set boundaries in the area of sex, verbal communication, finances, time together, friendships, addictions, extended family and so on. In some of these areas we might set boundaries naturally, but in other areas we might need to have a think. It's a big topic -- But thankfully one that these days is getting air-time. 

Do you have any final thoughts you would like to share on boundaries?

Love to you all,

Ann