Repairer of the Breach, Part 2

Our Bridegroom yearns to live His risen life in our homes and families. Bonnie shares the power of our “yes” in our Bridegroom’s promise:

The ancient ruins shall be rebuilt for your sake, and the foundations from ages past you shall raise up; ‘Repairer of the breach,’ they shall call you, ‘Restorer of ruined homesteads.'” (Is. 58:6-12)

PART 2

(Jesus, speaking in our hearts…)

There is more, My beloveds.

Will you allow Me, since I have borne them already, to help you recognize the lies, the “accusations against you,” whether in the past or in the present, either internally or externally? Will you renounce them with Me? Will you let Me show you clearly the “weapons fashioned against you” -the diminishments, the carelessnesses with your heart – so that you can see them through My eyes? Will you recognize that the pain you bear often belongs to a mother, a father, a spouse, a teacher, an employer, which they would not or could not bear for themselves and unwittingly transferred to you? Will you allow Me to reveal to you the vows which you have made in self-protection against these things…the “I will never-s” that hold you bound? Will you let Me bind to Myself the fortifications you have erected around your heart? You needed these to survive trauma, but now they poison your life, and potentially the generations to follow, except for OUR remedy! Will you BE the remedy with Me? Will you let Me stop, through your docility to My work, the father of lies and the accuser of the brethren from leaking into future generations?

My dear ones, My Father has created your femininity with a particular penchant for receiving, for being porous, for carrying life, for nurturing, for consoling. The enemy of your souls specializes in twisting these gifts so that you become enmeshed in the darkness of the offense committed against you. You absorb it, carry it, bear its shame as your own. Will you renounce being a victim of this pain, this abandonment, this rejection, this dishonoring of you? My sister, My bride, allow Me to give you the gift of divine objectivity and name the sin committed against you as sin! I will show you that this is not disloyalty, but love. A murky fear of “condemning” another when we know our own weakness accomplishes nothing but trapping us in foggy anguish. My storm-battered body on the cross is a visual of the effect of the offense committed against you. The wounding is severe and not to be minimized. Look at My body on the cross and see yourself mirrored, My precious one! My beloveds well know that I died for their sins, but I yearn for their hearts to understand, and deeply, that I bear the sins committed against them as well. I have already absorbed this wounding for you, My dear ones, and at a price. I beg you as your loving Lord in need of consolation, to let Me carry it and bear its shame! Touch the hem of My garment, stand straight up and name the offense committed against you. Give it over into My body on the cross and let Me carry it. This is freedom!

Objectivizing the sin allows separating the sin from the sinner. Forgiveness, after this awareness, is relieving! So much easier, now “hating the sin,” to “love the sinner.” Have courage. You are used to having the fuzziness of sin or self-reproach or self-doubt muddy My living waters. To be raised up, clothed with My dignity and dis-own what was not yours in the first place, is new behavior! But what delight I take in it. Clear sight, even in searing pain like Mine on the cross, makes way for “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” When you and I see objectively together, you will find the rage prompted so often by the scorn of others softening into compassion. Compassion tells us that the “stinger” has been removed. Even the places in your bodies in which the damage has been stored share in this relief.

And do not fear, I hear your plea, my beloved – you who so desires oneness with My heart – to be accountable for your own part in the anguish you experience. I see that you suspect self-justification, self-preservation, your own ego. I see that you are wary of the filter your own wounds give you. We will get to those things. But while they are entangled with the pain of present circumstances, there can be only sticky muck. One step at a time. The first is to let Me have your pain. “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-burdened.” I am “the Man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.” I am your apple tree in The Song of Songs. I am the coolest, safest shade. You who have had no voice, I call to you to come out from the clefts of the rock and let Me hear everything in your heart (Song 2:14). I have no judgment, only tender acceptance. I am enough for your “not-enoughness.”

As a mother knows that only when the anguished child on her lap has cried it all out can he or she finally get perspective. She knows her child. She knows the timing. I know your timing, My beloved. We are on a journey together. In your experience, conviction of your own sin has to do with condemnation, with shaming. When you know in the depths of your being that My left hand is under your head and that My right embraces you (Song 2:6), that I didn’t come into the world to condemn you but to save you (salve–heal, Jn.3:17), then conviction of the barriers to our intimacy, and your intimacy with others, will be only relieving, freeing–even joyful! In fact, it is in the intimacy of My compassion for you that self-discovery will occur, not from your fear-and-guilt-tinged interior probing and picking. “In justice shall you be established–far from the fear of oppression, where destruction cannot come near you.” Never forget, My beloved, that My spirit within you “leads you into all truth” always as your Advocate and your Consoler (Jn. 14:26). We are your vindication. We lead you. We say, let Us tell you who you are. Your own filter is not trustworthy. Your Bridegroom’s filter – that’s the one to seek!

In these coming days, My beloveds, will you spend time in My gaze, and let Me show you the “you” I see?

Copyright 2021, Bonnie West