When Love Requires Distance: What I’m Learning About Boundaries, Truth, and Faith

For most of my life, people told me I should talk less. Be quieter. Keep things to myself. And for a long time, I thought maybe that was what God wanted from me too—to stay silent, to keep the peace, to not make waves.

But now, almost 38 years in, I’m finally asking the question for myself: Is that really what God wants? Would He really ask me to stuff everything down and call it love? Would He ask me to tolerate hurt, hide how I feel, and live small just to make other people comfortable?

I don’t think so anymore.

Because what I’ve been learning—slowly, painfully, but clearly—is that real love doesn’t mean staying quiet when someone is hurting you. Grace doesn’t mean pretending something isn’t wrong. And peace doesn’t mean keeping your mouth shut while your heart breaks.

As Christians, we’re told to love like Jesus. But I think somewhere along the way, a lot of us got confused about what that actually means. Loving like Jesus doesn’t mean letting people walk all over you. It doesn’t mean putting yourself last every single time until you forget who you are. And it definitely doesn’t mean hiding the truth just to avoid uncomfortable conversations.

I’ve wrestled with this a lot—when to speak, how to speak, if it’s even okay to speak at all. I’ve been at that crossroads more times than I can count: do I keep the peace, or do I finally say what I need to say?

The Bible says in Proverbs 4:23, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” That doesn’t sound like a command to stay silent. It sounds like permission to protect what’s sacred inside of you. And sometimes, protecting your heart means stepping away from people who keep breaking it.

Jesus Himself told His disciples that if people wouldn’t receive them or their message, they were free to walk away—shake the dust off their feet and move on. That’s in Matthew 10:14. He didn’t say, “Stay and try harder.” He didn’t say, “Take their abuse and be thankful for it.” He said, “Go.”

That’s not being unloving. That’s having wisdom.

You can forgive people and still create distance. You can pray for them and still protect your peace. You can love them—and still say, “This isn’t healthy for me anymore.”

And when it comes to speaking up, the Bible doesn’t tell us to keep everything inside. Ephesians 4:15 talks about speaking the truth in love. It doesn’t say “never speak.” It says speak—with love, with care, but speak. And Ecclesiastes 3:7 reminds us that there’s a time to be silent, yes—but there’s also a time to speak. And some of us have been silent for far too long.

If you’re carrying pain because someone has dismissed you, mistreated you, or ignored your boundaries, God sees that. He knows. He’s not asking you to pretend everything’s okay. He’s not asking you to carry that weight alone.

The Jesus I know was kind and merciful—but He also flipped tables. He called out injustice. He walked away from people who didn’t respect Him. He protected what mattered. And I believe He wants us to do the same.

You are allowed to say no. You are allowed to speak the truth. You are allowed to step back from people who continually hurt you. That’s not unchristian—that’s honoring the life and heart God gave you.

I’ve spent most of my life unsure when I was allowed to speak. I’ve been told that my voice was too loud, that my feelings were too much, that I was “too emotional” or “too sensitive.” And I internalized all of that. I kept quiet. I tried to be easy. I tried to be small.

And then I started wondering—what if Jesus never asked me to do that? What if the way I’ve been silenced had nothing to do with faith and everything to do with control?

What I’ve come to realize is this: Jesus never called me to be silent so others could feel more comfortable. He never asked me to carry other people’s guilt on my back. He never asked me to disappear.

He asked me to speak the truth in love. He asked me to walk in peace. And sometimes, that means walking away.

There is a holy kind of love that sets boundaries. A holy kind of strength that says “enough.” And there is absolutely nothing wrong—nothing unbiblical, nothing unkind—about protecting your heart, your peace, and your voice.

So if you’re in that place right now—wondering if it’s okay to speak, okay to leave, okay to feel—I hope you know that God isn’t mad at you for feeling tired. He isn’t disappointed in you for finally saying, “I can’t do this anymore.”

May the God of peace meet you right there—in the quiet, in the truth, in the boundaries you are learning to build. You are loved. You are heard. And you are worth protecting.