Amidst a Sea of Trees with Fruit

The entire world was created so she could have a place to dwell and live happily. Plants and animals and seas were gifted to her with love; a promise as a ring around her heart. Yet there she stood by the trees ashamed of herself, with herself, by herself.

The forest she hid in had a small opening of dew covered grass where the sun found its entrance amidst a sea of trees with fruit. Natural shrubbery decorated the outskirts. Out of the sun and in the shade, the woman leaned her forehead against the bark of a tree.

“Idiot!” she told herself.

Tears welled up in her eyes, the eye of the hurricane approaching its end.

“What am I missing that everyone else seems to have?”

At a distance, a complex figure approached the other side of the opening, waiting.

“Why do they like him? What does he have to offer that I don’t? They don’t even know me, I, my truest self! They don’t know my longing to explore the world, my love for the chickadee birds that sing songs to me each day, my delight in harvesting fruit that grew from a tiny seed, and my fear of living my life alone with no friends. Are not the desires and fears of my heart the same as his? What is it that makes him the cool one, the popular one? What is popularity? What makes a person more likable than another? Why don’t they like me too?”

The serpent slithered away from her and disappeared into the green sea. The hurricane arrived. Her wailing sounded like hail on flat rocks as she was crippled to the floor on her knees. Animals fearfully departed from her surrounding and she continued to wail and wail. Her world became black. The sun disappeared from her sight. Darkness covered over her like a homing cloud. Nothing could be seen. No one could be known. Nobody cared for her. Nobody liked her. She was naked and dirty. She was disgusting.

The man suddenly rushed into her space, running. He tripped, in fact, on her hunched over, crippled body but he managed to get up again quickly. Fear was running through his blood. Irritation swept over the woman’s face and she looked up for the first time since she disobeyed and ate the fruit. Their blame-shifting correspondence was briefly postponed by a noise they heard from the meadow. A figure walked into the sunlit opening as the two watched from the sidelines in hiding behind the trees. They could see who it was and they were overcome with fear.

“Where are you?” said their Creator from the dew sprinkled meadow. And as these words were spoken, the woman’s eyes were suddenly locked upon the eyes of God. He could see her completely and she suddenly felt…