Flashbacks

Isn't it amazing how closely music is tied to memory and feelings? This morning i heard Unforgiven, by Metallica, for the first time in probably 4 years. Instantly my feelings were transported back about 6 years, when I felt so trapped, and brainwashed, yet just starting to breakthrough the darkness, and not really knowing how. It's like drowning emotionally, or mentally groping in the dark, not knowing which end is up. It was the darkest, saddest, most lonely time in my life. Legalism had been my guide as a child. Do A, B and C and TA DA! You will get the results you want! God lived in a box, he was a system, and the perfect life was built in following steps, formula's and equations. And then, it all failed me. I was miserable. I did everything I was told God! Why have you forsaken me? The sadness turned to anger. "Never free, never me, so I dub thee, unforgiven". I altered everything God made me to be, to be what they said. I gave up all my freedom to live in the prison of perfection. I realized the failure in the results. What I didn't realize was that what had failed was the system, not the God that it was loosely based on.