Eve and I

Lately I haven’t been able to get out of The Garden. I used to skip over it so quickly. After you hear it for the fiftieth time in Sunday School it kind of loses its charm. But more and more I find myself going back to Eve. Back to our beginning. And wondering.

I think I have a lot in common with her. I have a hard time stopping myself. I have a hard time remembering that there is danger. My thoughts aren’t always safe or good.

I think the moment Eve listened and really heard- the moment she let those dark thoughts enter her head, that’s the moment her world changed. And then when she decided what was truth- when she decided for herself without Adam, without God, that’s when it got really dark and out of control.

I wonder what it was like for her. How she handled her failure. Or when it was that she realized that she had failed. I wonder what it was like to disappoint Adam. And God. To let them down. I think when she was hiding, she was hiding from who she became. She didn’t want reality. And we’ve been doing that ever since. Sometimes I feel like I’m still reeling from her decision. From my decisions. And part of me carries her denial. Her refusal to see herself as fallen. As no longer whole. No longer good.

I wonder what God felt when He saw her stumbling around in her shame, trying to make the bad go away. Without asking Him for help.

I wonder how many times she revisited that day. Those words, her decisions, her losses. And I wonder if she was ever able to get past the blame. To see herself as she was. Without Him.

And Adam, her protector. Her keeper. I wonder if they ever forgave. For things stolen. For things allowed. For betrayal and control and deceptions and blames.

Maybe they not only lost the Garden that day, but they lost something of themselves also. The part of them that trusted. Believed. I think that’s still hard for us. Hard to gain and easy to lose. The fragile qualities that make us who we are, that make us fully human. Fully His.

We have so many choices here. Little luxuries, options, controls. And we mess them up so badly on our own. All of the different roads and paths that we take. We get lost and turned around.

Life becomes a twisted labyrinth. And at first it’s fun and exciting. The unknown is kind of liberating. We get caught up in the mystery of ourselves. Of our potential and possibility. And we start to forget we’re small on our own.

Later we realize the urgency, the seriousness of life. And we turn even more corners in our frantic search for The Way. The Way that we neglected. The Way we slowly stopped trusting. And I think the way gets fainter and fainter the further in to life you go. It gets traveled less and less. Not as many people talk about it. Notice it.

Until we get so far in that we don’t recognize ourselves any more. And we realize that we aren’t even sure where we are.

Sometimes we don’t live well. And all of those choices and decisions, those seemingly harmless moments- they finally all accumulate and crowd us out.

And then, when we finally see ourselves for who we are- bruised and aching from life, then maybe we realize we need help. That we need to stop hiding behind life. That we need to be great for Him. In Him. And that He’s there, waiting for us. Waiting to finish making us. To redeem the good work He began.


“When I said, ‘My foot is slipping,’ your love, O Lord, supported me. When anxiety was deep and great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul.”