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Chain Breaker
Emily Alford
Chains are literally described as “metal links used for fastening or securing objects”. There are all kinds of chains, long chains and short chains, heavy chains and light chains. No matter the type of chain, it is not easily broken. Without the right tool, a regular person is not able to break the chain. Our sin is like chains. When we are bound by it, we cannot break free. We are trapped and are at the mercy of the one person who break us free. As most people do, we try everything in us to break free from the chains ourselves. We don’t want to ask for help, we don’t want to let anyone know that we were vulnerable enough to be caught, and we are so ashamed of our chains that we will go to drastic lengths to hide them. In the process of hiding our chains from others, our automatic response is to ‘hide’ it from God too. We seem to think that if He really knew who I was, He wouldn’t love me. We are so quick to tell ourselves that because of our chain, no matter how heavy, we are unworthy of love and to far for rescue. While this is a battle for me every day, one of the heaviest chains I ever experienced was when I was in middle school. I hated myself and I was so disappointed in who I was, that depression took over. I hid it so well because unless I told you, you’d never would have known. I was able to go about my life and hide it and every time that I tried to “shake it off” but it would just resurface. This left me in a constant cycle of I’m not worthy of love and I’m hopeless. This road seemed to be endless and I fought depression, self harm, and suicide alone… for years. To this day, I remember exactly where I was when I hit rock bottom. Sitting on my couch talking to one of my friends and thinking this is it I’m done. In that moment, Christ’s love wrapped me up so tight that I couldn’t deny it. When I wanted to give up, he pursued me anyways and brought back to himself. There are days where getting out of bed is hard and honestly I would rather sleep than face the day but then there are the days where I am able to share my story and show what Christ did through me. In those moments, I see how every step of the way was for a reason paving the path to where I am today. Without Christ choosing me and working through me, I wouldn’t be here. No matter where you are today, I want to encourage you that I have walked in some dark places but I made it through with the power of Christ. Don’t quit, keeping pushing because he will help you through. Christ is able to break our chains! Give him the control, there will be hard days but slowly and surely, you will make it through.
“He brought them out of darkness, utter darkness, and broke away their chains” Psalm 107:14
I want to end with one of my favorite quotes: “When the weight of it all if just too much, He is still leading the way, just like He did yesterday, and you will wake up from this season, so thankful for all He was doing on this day. And even though things were far from perfect, He was still leading the way.” Morgan Nichols