I have learned two great lessons from a gardener friend. One of them is that some plants are annuals (yearly, one-time bloom), others are perennials (last beyond a year; several or many blooms). It’s important to know the difference. If you spend a great deal of time and energy trying to get an annual plant to live beyond its lifespan, you will likely be very frustrated and disappointed.

The process of learning what is rightfully yours and what rightfully belongs to someone else is just that – a process of learning that occurs over time. Boundary-setting is first learned in families – whether those boundaries are healthy or not.

The Bible contains two words related to the emotional weight we carry in our relationships – the words load and burden. God’s Word says that each person shall bear his own load (see Galatians 6:5). We could translate the word load here as “knapsack” – those things we carry daily in the routine course of our lives.

But for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
—Genesis 2:20–22

Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.
—Acts 10:34–35

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
—Matthew 28:18–20