through adam's eyes - rebekah schragg (best pdf ebook reader for android txt) 📗

kinds.”
I didn’t understand what his words meant, but I watched in awe as more creatures appeared on the earth. All shapes and sizes. I laughed at some of them, they looked so strange. Others were beautiful, or graceful, but all were unique, no two were exactly alike. And their colors were fascinating. For a moment I couldn’t wait to see these animals up close, to feel them and look them over. I wanted to be close to them. For the first time I wanted to go to earth. The King, Son, and Messenger gathered around me. We all looked at the King.
He said to them, “Let us make man.”
Is that what I was to be, a man. I like the sound of it.
“In our image and likeness, and let him rule over the fish of the sea, and the birds of the air. Over thelivestock and all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
My companions smiled at each other and nodded silently. The next thing I remember was their hands on my shoulders and in the blink of an eye I was standing in the midst of the earth. I looked around trembling with fear, excitement, and trepidation. It all looked so different up close. When I looked at the ground I noticed two feet and legs. I was stunned to find that they were mine. I had a body. I felt all over it with my hands. I had ears, a nose, a mouth, and even a couple of parts that I wasn’t sure of. I didn’t know what they were or what their purpose was.”
Adam paused for a moment when the crowd chuckled at what he said.
“Fear overcame me and I began to weep and tremble. I was so scared. Where was the King? Why did he leave me alone here? I couldn’t see or feel him close by, but I heard his voice as though he was next to me.
“Be fruitful and increase in number: fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground. I give you every seed- bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground- everything that has the breath in it- I give every green plant for food.”
“But King, what do I do? How will I know what to do?” I called out hoping he would hear me. He answered me in a voice like a whisper.
“My Messenger will guide you and tell you everything you need to know. Just listen and you will hear him.” Then I was alone again. My ears strained to all the unique sounds around me and my eyes wandered around to absorb all there was to see. Suddenly, without knowing what I was doing, I took a step and my body moved forward. I became more aware of what this body of mine could do. A rumbling in my stomach caught my attention. I had never felt that before.
Hunger, you need food. Was the quiet voice that I heard almost out of nowhere. I looked up and saw round red things on a tree above my head. Apples. I heard that voice again. I picked one and very slowly and nervously put it to my mouth and that first taste was indescribable, so sweet and wet. I ate two more whole apples and felt content and full.
The sky was growing dark and my body felt tired. Where will I sleep? I thought as my eyes were drawn to a conclave of shrubs nearby. I cleared a patch of the shrubs away and lay down in the plush grass. I slept soundly without the knowledge that the King was creating one more fantastic creation. I never felt him open my chest and remove a rib from my body.
The King did something truly incredible with that rib. As I slept he fashioned a body out of the dirt of the earth. He shaped it and molded it with his own hands. When the body was perfect he bent his mouth to the body and breathed into it. Flesh and hair appeared and a heart began to beat. Her eyes opened and the King looked into her eyes and smiled.
“Arise, my child! You are alive now. That is a man, his name is Adam. I made you from him. Listen and be submissive to him. You are made to fulfill one another and to care for each other. Be fruitful and multiply,” he commanded her softly.
When I awoke, she was kneeling next to me. She touched my face with her fingers and ran them through my hair, her hands studied my body and then her own.
“Adam,” she said softly as her fingers traced the lines of my face.
“Yes, I am Adam. I will call you Eve, because you are my flesh and you will be known as a woman because you came from man.”
I was amazed at her as I began to study her body as she had done mine. She was so similar to me yet so different. Her body was beautiful and soft, so many curves. We laid there for awhile and explored each other’s bodies. Of all the King’s creations, Eve was the most beautiful.
I arose and took her hand, I didn’t know why, but it felt so natural, as though her hand had always been in mine.
I showed her everything I had discovered the day before and told her the names of all the animals. We spent many days exploring our world and each other. We talked together and I told her of heaven and the King and his companions. I told her the story of what I had seen in heaven and of all the King had said.
We were very happy together, for many days. We explored our new world and each other. The King came to earth one day and gave us some rules to follow; they were simple really. Take care of the earth, be fruitful and multiply, and don’t eat the fruit from the tree in the center of the garden. It was that last rule that got us into trouble. I had Eve gather some food for a meal while I gathered some wood to build some kind of shelter for us. She had been gone for quite some time and I began to worry.
When she came back she had her arms full of this luscious fruit. I didn’t remember seeing it before, but it sure looked good. She offered me a bite of the apple she was eating.
“Here, Adam, taste this. It’s so very good. The serpent told me about this fruit and I tried it.”
I took a bite from that apple not realizing where it had come from. It was very good, but I didn’t fully understand what she meant when she said the serpent told her about it.
“Eve, What do you mean the serpent told you about this fruit? Where did it come from?”
“It’s from that tree in the center of the garden, the one that the King told us not to eat from. The serpent said that we won’t really die if we eat it. And he was right I am still alive.”
“What have you done? He told us not to eat that fruit.”
I became angry with her, something I had never done before. I was scared of what the King would say and think. I had never gone against anything he had said. I began to tremble when I heard him walking in the garden. I saw that Eve and I were naked, something I had never noticed before. We scurried to cover ourselves so that the King would not see us.
“Adam, Eve, Where are you?”
We didn’t answer because we were afraid. We were hiding in some bushes. I saw him come close and knew I had to answer him.
“I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
“Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree, that I commanded you not to eat from?”
I had never seen the King angry before; his eyes were dark and his voice shook the earth. “The woman you put here with me, she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it.
“What is this you have done?” he said to her. She looked at me and I could see that she was scared and worried. I didn’t understand why, but rather than comfort her as I would have done a few minutes before, I pushed her away from me.
She trembled as she spoke, “The serpent deceived me and I ate it.”
He saw the serpent in the tree above where Eve was standing and he spoke to it just as he had us, “Cursed are you above all the livestock and the wild animals.”
I thought that he would no longer be angry with us now that he was addressing the serpent and cursing him, but he turned to Eve.
“I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you.” She just stood there with her head hung down in shame, I could see the tears in her eyes and I wanted to wipe them away, but at the same time I was angry with her. I didn’t understand this new mix of emotions.
“Adam, because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it’ Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.”
I was so ashamed of what I had done, that I couldn’t look into his face. He cast us out of Eden that day, and our lives were never the same after that. The earth changed and so did Eve and I. We covered ourselves with garments we made