Breach
· an act of breaking a law, promise, agreement, or relationship
· a hole that is made in a wall or in another structure being used for protection to make an opening in a wall or fence, especially in order to attack someone or someone behind it.
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Have you ever thought about that? What kind of legacy or memory do you want to leave behind? How would you want former friends, acquaintances, or even strangers to remember you?
I found a note I wrote years ago, where I said:
“I want to be remembered as a person who desired to do what is right. I want people to say ‘she wanted justice and she wanted fairness and she wanted people to do the right things in their lives and for their lives. I want people to say she wanted people to stand up for themselves and do what is honourable because she believed that people should live life that honours God and that honours others.”
And I want to be remembered that way, still. I want to be remembered as a person who sought to do right before God. But in addition to this, I want to be remembered as honest, kind, courageous, and a builder, and a repairer of the breach. Wow, I wasn’t expecting to write out that last part: repairer of the breach. It’s a phrase that’s from this scripture: Isaiah 58:12: “And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.”
Communities are broken because people are broken. And people are broken because their place of origin is broken.
I see the weakness in my own foundation, and the broken walls in me that I’ve been rebuilding. What was supposed to be safe, secure, consistent, predictable, was chaotic, uncertain, and created anxiety. I am working to make my body livable again. But more than that, I see that I want to make my community livable.
If there has been a breach in a building, it means that it once was secure, but an enemy has somehow trespassed and broken in. Were they let in? Did they force themselves in? Regardless, the structure was [presumably] secure, but it either was too easy for it to be infiltrated, or neglect caused the structure to be unguarded.
I like the Message version that says: You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew.” At first, I thought why use old material to build something new? There is wisdom to draw from the past. Hindsight is an excellent teacher. You don’t always have to look too far. You only need to know what was done, and whether it is something worthy of keeping, improving or throwing away. The old rubble of past lives. Lives were built and demolished, and now lay in the sands of time as wreckage. But there are lessons to learn, and wisdom in that wreckage; use it to build your life anew.
And how do you build? You’ll build with your words. Speak the opposite of the chaos. Speak what you want to see. You’ll build with your hands. Put in the work, and be diligent. Pray and search for the resources and commit to do the work step by step. And by knowledge and understanding, the new walls and bridges that you build will stand tall and secure, able to withstand any attempted breach by any enemy.
I want to build my own life anew. And I want others to do the same. I want our homes to be liveable. And I want our communities to be liveable.
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