"You broke my chains of sin and shame...and covered me with grace"

Alright -- now that the slightly depressing and out-of-character entry about the summer has been written and posted, I think it's only fair for it to be followed by an optimistic post.

I've been really happy to be back in school, back in Pullman.  I love it - even as my differential equations homework is infinitely frustrating, and even when I'm up at 6:30 am and have to make it through 13 hours of work, classes and evening commitments without a break to speak of. Why? Because this is just my place now, the work I do, the relationships I have...they're here. Despite all of the craziness, the comfort of knowing that there are 17,000 other people on campus who can understand what your pace of life is like, can sympathize with the stress, and celebrate the successes, is really refreshing.

The semester's busier than I expected it to be -- while I'm only taking 14 credits, they're intense classes. Add on my Chi Alpha commitments, a part-time job, and living sans-RDA, I have plenty to do and plenty to keep me occupied. However, next week is the beginning of week 5, and I haven't had a nervous breakdown yet! So I think we'll continue to be okay. ;)  I love living in Honors - this is by far my favorite situation yet! Having a kitchen, a couch, a much-more-private bathroom...and 5 other girls to share it with? Great! The study lounge is close, my first class is right downstairs, and I can look out my window onto Thompson Flats.

Now to explain the song lyrics that inspired this post.  The song is called "I Am Set Free" by All Sons and Daughters. The verse and chorus progression goes like this:

You broke my chains of sin and shame
And You covered me with grace
And You mend my life with Your holy fire
You cover me with grace

And You are the hand that reaches out to save

And i am set free, oh oh oh
i am set free, oh oh oh
It is for freedom that i am set free 

I was walking between classes one day at the beginning of the semester, and this song came on my iPod. I hadn't listened to it in a long time, and as it played, I just connected with the lyrics in a different way than before. See, this connection has several parts. 

1) I just recently reached my 4 month anniversary of not biting my nails. I know it doesn't sound like much, but hear me out. I haven't had actual fingernails for as long as I can remember. I have zero memory of deciding to start biting them, I just always have. I don't know if its a stress-induced thing, or a weird psychological thing, or I read about a character a book who did and wanted to try, or what. And all my life, everyone tells me to stop. That I should quit, that I'd have prettier hands if I had fingernails. Told me that my nails would one day stop growing and I'd never have the chance to have pretty fingers. Believe me, I wanted to quit. I wished I could. Off and on for years, I'd make it a week or two, my nails would grow a little bit...and then I'd fall back into it. I prayed for strength to stop, I  cried over it, I criticized myself for it, I couldn't quit. My sophomore year in college I finally decided to try acrylic nails for a few months. I hated the feel of acrylics, but I loved the way my hands looked. They came off shortly after Thanksgiving break, and I managed to keep my real nails for a few weeks. But between finals week, and 3 weeks back at home, where people pretty much "expected" I would start biting again...I did. Then I went to Haiti. 

Honestly, I think I was just afraid to get a parasite and die, so I decided that I would take a lot of gum, and work really hard to leave my nails alone while we were there, just in case there was some evil micro-organism-thing in the dirt or the food or whatever that got on my hands. So I did. I made it the full two weeks. And then I came home, and I was just done. I bought a nail file, and nail polish, and went to town. I have no desire to bite anymore. I honestly don't want to. I'm claiming freedom from that habit, and I'm doing a little celebratory dance every month that goes by. That habit was chaining me down -- I was ashamed. I let it affect my self-esteem, and I felt guilty every day. Finally, after 15+ years, I feel freed. 

2) This one is going to be harder to put into words. I can't give a lot of details, because I don't want my personal struggles to be completely publicized on the web. The short story is this. I've fought with a particular sin in my life for about 4 years now. I've known that this was an unhealthy thing for me - that my thought pattern was dangerous and wrong, but haven't been able to shake it. Okay, as with all vices, it's partially that we "can't" shake it, and partly that we don't want to give it up quite yet. Fear of the unknown, fear of living without the issue, is often a strong motivator to remain in those patterns. In the last year, I was increasingly convicted of the attitudes in my heart, and my refusal to take action to change them. I'd been praying, asking God to help me, to make it stop. I've been confused about what to do, as all of my ideas for how to get out from under this burden seemed to either be failing, or be impossible to actually carry out.

My first week on campus this semester, I finally had a breakthrough. I had both a spiritual and a  physical affirmation that I was freed from this sin. To be honest, I had almost given up hope that it would ever happen. Thankfully, God accepts broken people. He waits for us to throw up our hands in exasperation and cry "I can't do this anymore!", because that's when we will fully surrender ourselves to Him. As many times as I thought  I'd gotten to that point, apparently I never completely had. When I realized that God had removed those thoughts and attitudes from me, and that I was not tied down by them anymore, I wanted to cry with happiness. Even though for a while, it's like a bird who finally has its cage door opened and is afraid to fly out, I knew the door was finally open. Slowly and surely, I am now able to move forward, and to claim the freedom that comes from an open door, and a promise that there is life beyond my cage.  My chain of sin has been broken. I choose to claim that as truth. 

Needless to say, these two events both coincided amazingly with the song for today's post. My chains are broken, and have been replaced with a covering of grace. Constantly, I am covered by grace, and I am reached out to by a Hand that has no reason to reach for me. I am set free. 

*I Am Set Free, All Sons and Daughters