My Chains are Gone

"My chains are gone, I've been set free, my God, my Savior has ransomed me, and like a flood His mercy reigns, unending love, amazing grace!"

These are the words that ran through my mind this morning at chapel. It's been twenty-one years of experiences, hurt, joy, love, and pain that makes me who I am. Today in chapel our speaker talked about how we have all had hurtful childhood experiences that have shaped and molded us to be who we are. There is hurt inside everyone that needs to be dealt with at some point or we just continue to pass the hurt to the "third and fourth generations". 


Last night, I was reading Captivating for the third time in my life. I lead a transfer girls bible study on Monday nights with an incredible group of women. This weeks chapter is called Wounded. It was all about the sins of our fathers and mothers that have caused us to put up barriers, walls, and fortresses around our feminine hearts because of the hurt inflicted on us, and the choices we've made as a result of them. 


I distinctly remember the first time I read the book, I was a junior in high school, recommended to read the book by my friend Rachel. I read it and I remember how much I hated it, I refused to allow myself to acknowledge the pain and hurt I was in, I refused to see that there was truth in the book, and I refused to let my heart be open at that time to Gods whispers in which He intended to draw me near.


I wrote off the book and decided that it was stupid and not worth thinking about. So God waited.


My sophomore year of college, just four years after my first major change in my life, was the beginning of a new, exciting, and scary change. I was beginning a new chapter of my life at Azusa Pacific University and unfortunately, I was knee deep in a mud pit of depression. I carried a cloud of pain and darkness around me at all times. I didn't realize that my depression was affecting everything I did and who I was.


For about four months, God spoke to my heart the word Captivating on a daily basis; through friends, through classes, through songs...all of it pointed to this one word. At the time I knew that God was asking me to read the book again, to give it another shot and to allow my heart to be open. 


After about four months of resisting, I went out and bought the book. I read it for a second time, this time weeping at each turn of the page. I related perfectly to her words, experiences, thoughts and pain. As I read about the different types of fathers and pain they caused, and the different types of mothers and the pain they caused I realized much of my own hurt and coping mechanisms. 


In the midst of my darkest depression that had me paralyzed in mind, body, and soul... I read.
God spoke. 
I listened.
As my tears stained the pages and the hurt was revealed, I began to feel like I was being buried alive in a hole that been dug for me as a grave from birth. 


As I read through the book, God revealed to me the ways that I was hurt, and although it seemed like a grave that had been pre-dug for me, God slowly found ways to fill in my hole without needing to bury me under it. He took away, for what may have been the final time, the man I had loved since I was 15 years old. I drove home from Arizona (two years ago today) crying my eyes out hoping I wouldn't actually need to finally move on, but coming to the reality that it was time. Then God brought a new boy, he was sweet and spunky and just what I needed. His presence in my life at that time revealed Christ and the slow healing power that it would take to bridge the pain I felt. 


Over the course of the last two years God has slowly changed my heart. He has brought me confidence and joy. He has allowed me to open my heart to healing and power that only comes from Christ. It was a mix of friendships, counseling, a large fight with my father, moving to school, a broken relationship, and Christ that has brought me to where I am today. As I read the chapter Wounded for the third time yesterday, I realized that two years later, I am healed of those wounds that had plagued me since I was a child.
The wounds that kept me paralyzed through high school and the early years of college. 
The wounds that pushed every close friendship I had away. 


I could listen to the chapel speaker this morning and read that chapter and know that I don't hurt anymore from it. The depression that threatened to bury me, Christ lifted me out of... and not only that, He filled in the hole I thought was meant for my death. I don't carry around my cloud of darkness, but rather share the light that has come from my incredible Savior! I shout for Joy at the sound of His name. I don't hurt from the pain passed down through my fathers family, I don't hurt from the pain passed down from my mothers family.

I am whole. I am new. I am free.