Example of building a link from an text field.

gistfile1.txt

  //example of building a link from an text field.
  $nid = 1;
  $node = node_load($nid);
  $field = field_get_items('node', $node, 'field_link');

  $link = array(
    '#theme' => 'link',
    '#text' => $field[0]['safe_value'],
    '#path' => $field[0]['safe_value'],
    '#options' => array(
      'attributes' => array('class'=>array('awesmome')),
      'html'=>false,
    ),
  );

  dpm(drupal_render($link));