The Walls We Build: Protecting Ourselves or Keeping Life Out?

There’s something comforting about walls.

They create boundaries.

They offer protection.

They give you control or so it seems.

For a lot of us, the walls we’ve built around our hearts didn’t go up overnight (Rome wasn't built in a day). The walls were built tile by tile, brick by brick, from experiences, betrayals that we never saw coming, disappointments that has shattered our hopes, moments when trusting others only left us wounded or heartbroken.

At first, when you start building the wall, it felt wise and like the best thing to do. I'm sure that you must have convinced yourself that it is necessary safeguard. Your way of saying, “This far, no further. ”because you believe that if you could control who got close, then you can control the hurt". But what happens when the very walls that was meant to protect you now begin to imprison you?

Why We Build Walls

Most time these walls are often born from the need to survive. When the world feels unsafe, we retreat behind barriers of caution, suspicion, and silence and tell ourselves we’re protecting our peace. We convince ourselves we’re being “smart.” Truth is sometimes we actually are.

It’s not a foolish decision to decide who you let into your life. It’s not wrong to guard your heart. But if you are honest, sometimes your walls grow higher than they need to be and becomes an hinderance. Because you don’t just keep the bad out, you keep everything else out. You can shield yourself from harm... but you can also shield yourself from healing, love, and new beginnings.

The Cost of Our Walls

The negative thing is that those walls don’t just block out your pain, they can block out your joy too. Walls won't only keep away the people who that can hurt you, it can also keep away the people who that have the possibility of loving you, being a blessing to your life or facilitating your healing.

You miss out on friendships because you are automatically expecting betrayal. You miss out

on opportunities because you expect to fail. And you can miss out on love because you are afraid of abandonment. With time, that “safe place” you have created behind the walls can become lonely. It will start to feel empty.

So if you find yourself always expecting the worst from people or you struggle to trust people who’ve shown you nothing but good intentions. If you are feeling emotionally “numb” safe, but disconnected from life. These should be signs that your walls are too high and no longer protecting you but also locking out good things. And your self-preservation has quietly morphed into self-imprisonment.

Tearing Down the Walls (Brick by Brick)

As much as you need to keep the bad things and bad people out you have to realize that you need to leave room for the good as well. The walls have to come down with the help of the Holy Spirit and spirit of discernment. Healing doesn't happen by bulldozing the walls all at once. It happens brick by brick, moment after moment, as you learn to live with wisdom and openness again.

It starts with awareness, by noticing when you're shutting out more than danger. Allowing safe people in, one small step at a time, giving yourself the permission to be seen — not necessarily by everyone, but by someone. Trusting God to protect you from any form of danger because He is the only one that can guard your heart better than any wall ever could.

You don’t have to live trapped neither do you have to settle for loneliness masquerading as safety. Walls may have saved you once but they don’t have to define your future.

A New Way Forward

It’s okay to be cautious, to be wise but maybe today is the day you trade your towering walls for healthy boundaries instead. Boundaries protect without isolating. They allow you to love wisely, live fully, and connect deeply without losing yourself. God never asked you to build walls around your heart. He asked that you guard them with His wisdom, His peace, and His love as your shield.

So today, I hope that you start dismantling the walls you've built out of fear and start building bridges rooted in faith, hope, and love instead. "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Proverbs 4:23 (NIV) Not by living behind walls of fear, but by living under the covering of the One who loves us most.