A Different Perspective

“I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy, and in pain you will give birth.” Genesis 3:16

 “By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat until you return to the ground from which you were made.” Genesis 3:19

  These are the words God spoke to Eve and Adam respectively after they confessed to having eaten the fruit from the tree of knowledge.

  At one point during some conflict with my young, pre-teen daughter about having her help around the house I had her switch places with me for a day, doing all I did as a mom. (I admit to having her do far more than I usually did to prove a point.) It was successful in changing her heart about doing the few chores we asked of her.

  I wonder if something similar hasn’t happened here.

  Adam and Eve would have enjoyed a wonderful relationship with God. Seeing as He walked and talked with them in the Garden of Eden, there must have been pleasure for Him in doing so. God is a God of relationship although no one has seen His face since.

  Did God choose to give Eve these difficulties in childbirth as a reminder of His pain? The pain of losing the intimate relationship He had with the creations He had made in His image? Was this to serve as a foreshadowing of His greatest pain, knowing His Son, fathered by His Spirit, would have to die for reconciliation to happen?

  And for Adam: God laboured six days to create the good heavens and the good earth and all its good creatures. Was Adam given the gift of being able to connect to God’s disappointment in the “harvest” despite how hard He had laboured?

  They weren’t cursed despite the traditional teaching about these passages. The serpent was. It was cursed more than all animals. V.14

  The ground was cursed, not the man. V.17 (I guess that's why He had to declare the ground holy when He spoke to Moses as a burning bush.)

  A God who is the perfect embodiment of love would not have cursed His children. Perhaps their knowing about evil was enough of a burden because it would, from that point on, become humanity’s greatest foe.

  God is not our enemy. He never has been. He never will be.

 

  Much to think about.

  I wondered if I have placed mortal characteristics on God, such as fatigue after His labours, then I recalled that He rested on the seventh day. Rest is only required when you are tired. Maybe that’s part of what He gave to Eve as well: being able to connect to Him through the labour and energy required to create a living thing.

  And I have to re-frame my thoughts about all that has happened to me, all that took place to leave me living with PTSD and depression. Within the evil, within the struggles lay a harvest.

  Lord, in light of how these weeks of med withdrawal have been incredibly difficult, show me the harvest. Thank You for reminding me I should be taking Vitamin D to help with the depression that has been so debilitating these last few days. In Jesus’ name I pray. AMEN!