We live in an area full of rabbits, coyotes, bears, deer, and other critters. Some of them LOVE our vegetables, so we built a fence around our garden. Without that boundary, our garden wouldn’t survive. It has a gate, of course, so we can go in and out.

As you would guess, I’m applying this to life. In life we need boundaries. We need to protect the seeds we sow into other people’s lives. We need to protect the children and vulnerable in our midst. We need to know our emotional enemies and not let them in.

We need to know when to say yes and when to say no. We can get overwhelmed with need, but as Charles E. Hummel said, “the need itself is not the call.”

And as Anne Lamott said, “’No’ is a complete sentence.”

We also need to think about what we allow to pass through our inner gates—both the messages we let into our souls and what (of ourselves) we give away.

Our inner gardens are so important…so worth protecting.