By Catherine Brown, Scotland

Email: catherine@gatekeepers.org.uk www.gatekeepers.org.uk

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Note from Steve Shultz: Catherine has much from the Lord for the World Church. Please check out her site for a full listing of her messages. She will gladly ship these messages to you on tape or CD from Scotland. Click on: www.gatekeepers.org.uk/resources

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Special Note from Steve Shultz: This word by Catherine Brown was emailed to me several weeks ago but I had not yet published it. Note how nicely and dovetails with and confirms the word that we posted last night by Graham Cooke. I always love it when the Holy Spirit is clearly saying

the same thing all over the world -- in this case, to Catherine in Scotland!

Blessings, Steve Shultz www.elijahlist.com

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Catherine Brown:

Several weeks ago I had a vision of a beautiful bride walking barefoot along a jagged pathway. She was attired in full bridal regalia with the exception of her shoes. Due to the lack of suitable footwear, her feet were being wounded and cut by the stones on the ground where she walked. The blood flowed from her feet and began to stain her bridal train with scarlet spots. The jagged stones also tore at the hem of her bridal garment. The bride was in excruciating pain and I felt her pain pass through my heart. She presented a picture of exquisite beauty, yet it was evident that she was in need of healing. The bride is representative of the global Church.

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FRUITFUL YET STILL IN NEED OF HEALING
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Despite the fact that the bride was suffering, I noticed that her walk was not without fruit. With each painful step, people were being added to the bridal train and were being carried along by the bride. This spoke to me of a harvest of souls from the nations. With each footstep the bride became increasingly weary and the pain threatened to engulf her. I was deeply moved by the bride’s courage and tenacity, but it seemed to me that her exhaustion and wounds were in desperate need of attention. Without the administration of healing the bride was in danger of becoming totally exhausted and unable to continue her walk. The Holy Spirit began to impress to me the need for His bride to come into a season of divine healing and enter into His rest.

Despite the harvest of souls, the bride had reached a point where the pain was impossible for her to endure any longer. In desperation she looked around for her deliverer. In an instant, the Lord Jesus appeared and ran to the bride, scooping her into his arms. The reunion was full of joy and the bride as Bridegroom embraced and danced together. The Lord kissed her bleeding feet, healing them with His tender touch. He planted kisses on her cheeks and the bride was made complete through divine union with her beloved Bridegroom.

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A MODERN PARABLE
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Our youngest son Samuel is almost three years old. One day this week, I was carrying a basket full of laundry out to the tumble drier, which is located in our garage. I deposited the laundry in the drier and turned round to discover Samuel was attempting to follow me out to the garage.

Samuel in his desire to be near to me, had followed in my footsteps. The quickest route to our garage is along a rough gravel path. The stones on this path are particularly painful if you feet are age two, tender and without shoes! Despite these difficulties, this was the route Samuel had chosen. He was attempting to negotiate some particularly nasty looking gravel chips, foregoing the much kinder grass verge in order to reach me in the optimum time. I gazed at his tiny unprotected feet, and cast my glance upwards to catch an almost hidden grimace on his face as he tried to walk towards me. How my heart swelled with love for him as he feigned bravery like a little trooper. His pain was evident to me and it hurt me to see my beloved son in an agony that I knew I could prevent, if only he would let me.

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"I WAITED WITH AN ACHING HEART FOR MY SON'S RESPONSE"
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I immediately dropped the laundry basket and asked him if he would like some help. I did not instantly run to him, but rather felt I ought to ask him if would like me to help. Two years olds are fiercely independent and I didn’t want to take away my young son’s choice of making his own decision in this matter. Yet, my arms ached to hold him and lift him from harm’s way. My feet were well shod and I could easily run to him, preventing any further injury being inflicted. Suddenly the Holy Spirit broke into my thoughts, and I realized that the Lord was showing me a living parable for the vision I had received some time before of the barefoot bride. I waited with an aching heart for my son’s response.

Samuel’s response was instantaneous and as he nodded in assent to my offer of help, my heart swelled again (this time) with the Father’s love for my tiny son. I ran to him and gathered him into my arms. Joy burst afresh in my heart, as I was able to hold my son, having lifted him into the safety of my loving embrace. This joy was reciprocated in Samuel. I kissed his small feet, anxious to bathe them with tender kisses and ensure he was not hurt. I spun him up and around and the son shone down on us as we giggled and hugged. It was a moment of union that took us each deeper along the journey of parent and sibling love.

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THE GREATEST OF ALL GRACES – THE DIVINE UNION
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It occurs to me as I recount these precious moments, that the Lord is calling His bride to enter into a season of Grace-filled healing. His Holy love desires to bring us into the greatest of all graces – the fullness of divine union with Him.

To do so will require that we receive His healing. Whilst the vision depicted the bride as beautiful and showed she is being transformed into the image of Christ, it also revealed she is weary and has sustained wounding as she has endeavored to fulfill her kingdom calling and commission. Many of us have known the healing balm of Gilead as the Holy Spirit has kissed wounds from our past, but some believers have sustained further wounds since that healing process occurred and are in need of a new breath of the Father’s healing touch. This vision showed the Father’s pleasure at his bride, but that He is concerned for her condition.

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REST FOR THE WEARY – STILL A CHOICE
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The Lord wants to heal the wounds of His bride, but just like my small son Samuel, entering into His embrace and receiving healing is a choice. We must surrender and go deeper in our relationship with the Lord. That which we think is hidden is not hidden from the Father’s eyes. The Lord calls us to live under Grace that Grace might reign in our lives through Christ’s Righteousness.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.� Mt 11:28-30

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JESUS – OUR FIRST LOVE

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The Lord desires that we lay down our striving and self-righteous inclinations, and run into His arms with contrite hearts. He longs to pour out His abundant love on us and shower us with His kisses. The bride of Christ must learn to depend on Christ’s righteousness alone. Some of our wounds are self-inflicted because we have been deceived into self-righteous behavior.

The bride in the vision had her focus on the path and on the walk before her. For a time she seemed so caught up in her walk (i.e. fulfilling the works Christ has commissioned her to do) that she apparently lost sight of the very One who called her to the work. It is Christ and Christ alone who is our High Priest and the Mediator of the new covenant of Grace. He loves us because He loves us, not because of our works. The Lord wants to restore His rightful place in our hearts; the bride must turn again to Jesus and seek Him with all of her heart to be her First Love at all times. We do not work for Him that He might love us. He first loved us, and it is His perfect love working through us that fulfils the Father’s heart desires.

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A ROYAL SUBJECT
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In the days of king Solomon only royalty would have worn sandals, whilst slaves would have gone barefoot. As the bride of Christ learns to walk in Grace and surrender to his Holy love her feet will be shod with the peace that comes from loving Him. Christ’s feet were pierced for our transgressions that we might walk as his bride without spot or wrinkle, into our royal inheritance.

“How beautiful your sandaled feet, O prince’s daughter.� SoS 7:1

www.gatekeepers.org.uk

Catherine Brown

April 2002

Note from Steve Shultz: Please order some of Catherine's anointed Words to the Church (on tape or CD). Order by clicking on: www.gatekeepers.org.uk/resources