An older woman sat across from me in Starbucks on Tuesday.

“Can I just rest here while they make my drink?” she asked me.  The unfortunate responsibility of claiming the table nearest to the barista’s bar, I smiled and nodded my head. I went back to working on chapter twelve.

I could barely hear her through my headphones and as she obviously wanted to have a conversation, I took them out. “That guy over there is really tall,” she noticed. “And very cute, don’t you think?”

I glanced over to see who she was referring to.  An attractive man towered over the others in the line waiting for lattes and peppermint mochas. I smiled at the woman and nodded again. I didn’t know how to answer her.  “But not for me!” she laughed, referring to her age.

“Not for me either,” I replied.

He grabbed his drink and walked past us and out the door.

No one else for me.  Ever. I thought.

And I didn’t even look up as he passed by us.  I didn’t want to look up.

I’m not perfect, but I know what my limits are.  I know that if I’m sitting in Starbucks and Tall Attractive Guy sits near me so that I can see him while I’m working, I’d better turn around or leave altogether. I know not to catch the eye of the good looking guy dropping off his kid at school the same time as me.  I know to spend time with the moms rather than the dads at the soccer games.  I do my best not to put myself in the place of being tempted at all.

Because to be honest, I don’t want to have to make those types of decisions ever again. The ones that mean life or death.  I want to preclude them by safeguarding myself before I even get to that point.

Sitting there by myself I would NEVER have looked up to glance at the guy. But sometimes temptation comes in the form of a friendly old woman calling my attention what she thinks is a harmless cute guy standing in the Starbucks line.  But if I linger, and I chat with him and I laugh then it isn’t harmless anymore.  So I stop it before I even look.  Before I even want to linger and chat.

Some of it is that I’m content.

Some of it is desire to be honest and true to the promises I’ve made.

And some of it is just habit that I’ve built over the last six years.

I never want to put myself in the situation ever again to even have the opportunity to make a good or bad choice when it comes to marital faithfulness. Anything less than this is too risky for me, for my husband and for our relationship. So I do all that I can to keep my own heart safe.

Because if I safeguard my own heart, I safeguard my marriage.

How do you keep your heart safe? Your marriage?  Do you think I’m being TOO prudish?

****And, drumroll please.  The winner of the iTunes, Starbucks, Moleskine giveaway is Alece.

She says:

ooooh i love this armstrong pic — but i really loved the one you tweeted. (twitted? i still don’t know proper twitter lingo!)

i gotta say i’m loving your trio. they’re staples of mine as well. i knew we were kindred spirits!

okay, a trio of favorites… hmmmm… these things are seriously hard for me! although i think my perfectionistic self makes them harder than they need to be. but i digress. (i’m gonna blame it on the fact that it’s 6:17 AM. and i haven’t slept yet. even after taking THREE melatonins! (oooh! that’s a trio!!) dang insomnia!)

anyway.

my trio of always-in-my-purse favorites:

minty lip gloss
best pen ever
orbitz mint mojito gum

See, it pays to have insomnia!!  Congrats Alece. I’ll send your package today. By the way, go visit her at Grit and Glory.  You’ll fall in love.

I drive the speed limit.

And I don’t like opening a package of crackers in the supermarket to feed my kids.  There is something in me that needs to pay for them first.

I’m a rule follower. I think it was bred into me.  Which is why my three years of breaking all the rules were so out of character for me.  At least for my personality.

I’d begun to press against the rules that I’d been raised with and in my blindness, seeing no immediate consequences, I questioned the validity of the rules.

Don’t drink.

Don’t flirt with men who aren’t my husband.

Don’t lie.

Don’t…

Nothing horrible was happening (yet) so what was the big deal?

The rule follower in me didn’t become a rule-breaker; she became a rule-questioner.  I wasn’t breaking anything if there wasn’t anything real to break because the rule only seemed real if their was a consequence.  My Evangelical upbringing had taught me that doing things like drugs or having sex before I was married would land me somewhere between hell and a really crappy life.  Here I was married and having an adulterous affair and nothing really bad was happening.  The consequences I thought would fall like an executioner’s axe weren’t falling.

What I’d failed to realize was that I shouldn’t do those things NOT because of the consequences (because in all truth, much of our life is lived without physical consequences) but because doing what was wrong would break relationship with God, and then eventually others.

It was about relationship.  Not about the rules. Because in the right relationship a person doesn’t really need rules.

Let’s just call it the rule of Love.  Jesus called it the Greatest Commandment.

If I love God and if I’m concerned about my intimacy with Him, then the more I want to please Him.  The more my life will look like a person who is in Love with their Creator.  And the more I will live in ways that are righteous and are in line with what we consider “rules”.  I’ll need the rules less as a rigid law because I’m focused on pleasing Him (and running everything through that filter). I will begin to do those things naturally that bring me closer to Him.

The same goes with my husband.  The more I love him, the more I want to be the right kind of wife and all the rules of submission and boundaries we’ve put in place (although important) begin to fade in light of my love for him. They aren’t nearly as important as how much I want to show him how much I love him today.

Rules? All of the other rules hang like a hat on a hook of the rule of Love.

What do you think? Are you a rule follower or a rule breaker?

We live in Southern California.

Our yards aren’t the wide green pastures that grace the backs of houses across the midwestern and eastern states.  Most of ours are painfully small.

But within the tiny yard behind our house are worlds to be created by my two girls.  They slam open the screen door and escape to mini-universes of fairies and horses, unicorns and winged things.  They are cocooned there.

If you can forgive the once-in-awhile bee that buzzes too closely, they are relatively safe.  If they obey my rules, stay inside the yard and get along with each other, they will avoid any dangers that might befall them in the front yard.

And there are fences.

We moved into this house 6 years ago and when we did, the fences were already here.  The community planners had decided that this particular lot deserved this much space and so that is what we paid for. They erected redwood fences in the back of our (tiny) property separating us from our neighbors.  To the west, there is a specifically enthusiastic dog who barks all day long and is never walked.  We think he is unemployed and looking for something to do:  bark viciously at my girls. To the south is a steep hill leading down to the home behind us.  If it weren’t for the fence, one or more of my toddlers would have taken a tumble years ago.  To the east, our neighbor’s yard is so pristine and perfect that I would be a neglectful parent and homeowner if I ever let my daughters loose on his yard.  I would worry what havoc they’d create inside rose gardens and babbling brooks.

There are “dangers” on all sides.  Which is why we love fences and boundaries.  It keeps us safe.

And boundaries in marriage are so important.

Last week I mentioned our new boundaries in marriage. (and if you haven’t read my story from last week yet, please do).  Some of you asked what those boundaries are and to be honest, I don’t think our new fences are any different than many solidly married couples.  With the help of our pastoral counselors and our marital therapist (and just plain what-works thinking) we came up with the following boundaries.

1.  I am never alone with men. Ever. This is both for trust issues (I want to always be above reproach) and for practical reasons as well.  Although I am convinced I will never cheat again (ever) I am also aware that I must begin by never placing myself in a situation where it would be an option.  And he is never alone with women.  Because of his job, he occasionally has to meet or talk with women at his client sites, but he doesn’t go out to lunch or coffee with them.  He is as careful as I am.  And this also includes email, twitter DMs and Facebook conversations.

2. We do not have emotional attachments/relationships with members of the opposite gender. This includes even working closely with someone of the opposite gender.  We do not make it a habit of spending one-on-one time in conversation either on the phone or at church or work beyond what is necessary.  We do not have “friends” with members of the opposite sex.  We have a lot of couple friends, but it is always to a degree that is healthy for all people concerned.  Chad usually chats with the husband and I talk with the wife.  Or the four of us talk together.  And in a ministry capacity as well, we do not think it’s healthy for us to work closely connected with someone of the opposite gender.  It just breeds closeness that should be reserved for spouses.

3. We are mindful of what we watch. This is simple.  We used to watch junk on TV and in film.  Now we are very careful of what we bring into our home and what we put into our minds.

4  We tell each other everything. I tell it all.  If I’m feeling like I know I’m heading for depression or that I don’t feel quite right about someone he’s met, I tell him. He tells me exactly what he thinks, because there’s just nothing to keep secret anymore.

5.  We know each other’s passwords to everything. He can check my email account or my facebook page any time he wants.  I have nothing to hide from him, and it feels amazing.

6.  We have the power of veto. When all is said and done, we don’t need a valid “reason” to veto a relationship or an activity in the other’s life.  If there’s something that just doesn’t feel right, we say so and the other submits to that.  We use it sparingly because of the trust we have in each other.

And remember, these all are layered on top of a loving marriage relationship in which we both are following Christ and listening to the Holy Spirit in our lives.  The trust we have in each other is NOT in the person but in Jesus in them.  I trust Jesus in Chad that he will never commit adultery and he trusts Jesus in me that I will remain faithful to him.

It’s so much safer inside the fenced yard than outside it.  But even inside the boundaries, I am watchful all the time.

What do you think?  Are your boundaries any different?