It’s my hope to bring these women alive for us through these sessions, to learn from them, and to befriend them. I’ve found that if I spend time hanging out with them, I realise we have a lot in common; our feminine experience spans time.
This sisterhood we are building here includes those cheering us on from heaven; it spans time, yes, but also the kingdom…
So naturally we start with Eve, created sinless, from the side of Adam, next to his heart. Not from his feet, meaning subservient, or from his head, symbolising superiority, but from the centre, where the blood that runs through every vein is pumped from. To suggest that Eve was made as an answer to Adam’s loneliness, I think downplays God’s intelligence. God’s image means being like he couldn’t foresee that Adam would need a companion, mostly because being made in the image of God means to be made in the image of love…. Love needs a beloved to exist…so Eve was always the plan
I wonder if we will ever be so close as to recognise the sound of the footsteps of the Lord approaching in this life, but I guess that’s the goal. We have all heard the story of the fall. Eve engages with the serpent and has her heart twisted away from God; Adam stands right beside her, neither protecting nor defending; in fact, joins in. Instantly, Eve knows of guilt and shame – and now we have a common connection, don’t we? Note that God doesn’t curse Adam and Eve but the serpent and the ground; God tells her that her offspring will bring the restoration of this fall. But that her “life-giving” will now cause her pain, so that’s not just childbirth but our whole reproductive life cycle; as they leave the garden, not only has she lost the intimacy with God, but after hearing him throw her under the first bus something has broken in the marriage too.
She is blessed with two sons at first, Cain and Abel, which we are told Eve credits God with; Cain sadly kills his brother through jealousy and gets cast away. So she must deeply grieve the loss of her children, both of them. A reflection of how God felt, maybe an understanding of the sorrow God bore as he watched them leave the garden. But she falls pregnant again and has Seth, the start of the Jesus line and the answer to her hurt and loss. We don’t hear when she dies or where she is buried, but it is rumoured that Adam was buried on Calvary. Awaiting the blood of the new Adam to pour over his bones and redeem the world.
The rest of the story is about a journey back to the garden to restore that connection and intimacy. Jesus opened the gates for us. He trod a path so we could find the way to them, knowing that we all have more than a little of Eve in us. If you can’t see the Father’s heart in this story, just look what He does to bring us back home.