Can you imagine the guilt and shame Eve lived with? I often wonder if she ever came to a place with God where she felt forgiven. I wonder if she spent the rest of her days on earth being the ‘perfect’ person. Perfect wife. Perfect mom. Trying to make right the wrong of her sin in the garden that day. Is this where it stems from for the modern day woman? Is this where it started? To carry the weight of that sin. Did she share the overwhelming weight of it with Adam? Did she tell him how she felt? Or did she lock it away deep inside thinking he wouldn’t possibly understand? Or maybe he would dismiss her feelings and somehow make her feel she was right where she deserved to be. And what about her children? Did they rise and call her blessed? Or were they bitter and blameful towards her? Did she feel loved? Or completely alone?

I love in this picture how Mary reaches out to touch Eve’s face. Mother to Mother. As Eve hangs her head in sorrow or perhaps shame, Mary so lovingly reaches out almost as if to say, “Lift up your eyes child! Look at how loved you are!” As the serpent in entwined around her legs and ankles most certainly causing her to “stumble”, the head of the snake is crushed under Mary’s foot. The baby in her belly, Jesus, coming to defeat this great enemy once and for all. To take our sin. To remove our shame. To be our peace. To show us love. To love and be loved. To know and be known. Man oh Man! SO many thoughts. So many thoughts. I just want to sit down and tell them to someone much more talented than me. Someone who could put pen to paper and make something of all these scattered thoughts. A perfect story of a completely imperfect girl who as a result of her sin created a fallen world and yet somehow through it all another girl bore a precious heaven sent baby boy who would change everything. EVERYthing!!!