A Year of Jubilation (Part 1)
I awaken… if that’s what it’s called; to a world, to a place, to a home.
I move my stiff limbs and gasp for something to take this anxious feeling away
from whatever is choking me. Where am I? Who am I? I wander around a strange
land. The beauty is too much for me to comprehend. Water starts to pour forth
from where I see. What is this mystery that overwhelms me? I see long stalks
tower in the sky and wetness running through the land. Just as I begin to feel
alone and scared I hear His voice. I see Him standing in front of me. I then
realize I was formed from the very innate image of the one to whom I stare
motionless at.
“Adam,” says the Voice
“Yes,” I reply guessing that that word must embody me.
“I AM,” He says in reply.
Immediately my bones shiver in fearful reverence. At that moment I begin
to fear “I AM.” Not the kind of fear that would make me want to turn my eyes,
but a magnetic fear.
He speaks again.
“Adam, I have formed you in my own image. You are the first of many more
to come. This is the Garden of Eden, which I give to you. Take and enjoy.”
He offers me the lush garden when all I really crave, for the first time,
is just for His constant presence.
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Thus began a year of jubilation between I AM and I. The rivers flowed and
the sun shone by day and the moon gave us light by night. I AM was always with
me, but sometimes not physically present. His spirit was palpable, but I
desired constant fellowship. So He gave unto me tasks within the Garden. He
gave me birds of air and beasts of the land to name and rule over. At the sound
of my own voice an animal would come near or flee away. I AM had given me a
mystical power that I could not explain. He brought me near a tree, as I had
learned from I AM, and told me of it.
“Adam, because I love you I’m telling you that of any tree in the Garden
you may eat, except this one.”
I stood mesmerized . The tree stood resolute with such girth that I felt
that I AM was saving me from such unprecedented wickedness; and who knew such
wickedness could dwell amongst the limbs of a tree?
“Of any tree in the garden you may eat, except this tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, for in the day you eat of it you shall surely die.”
I AM spoke with love in His voice, so much in fact that it shook the
ground we stood on with the sound of thunder.
After this He left me to my own for a bit of time. Yet still after all
of this I lacked fellowship with someone of my own kind. I spent hours aching for a companion that was
like me. All of creation sang by day and night, but it still didn’t fill a
certain void that had overcome me. I knew that I AM looked on my predicament
with sadness of heart. Again, He loved me. He loves His creation.
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One day as I was working a deep yearning for sleep started to come upon
me. This had not happened before since I had awoken in the garden. My flesh
wanted rest, but my mind was concerned at my physical condition and why
exactly, for no reason mind you, my eyes were so heavy. After a few moments of
inner war my flesh won over, or so I thought, and I surrendered unto sleep. My
dreams were void of anything. I felt what I thought was a constant tugging and
pulling, but I gave into the notion that dreams were made for us to explore the
unknown; things that we may never see or think of again. I awoke to a surprise
that changed my life forever.
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“Adam.” I AM said. “It is not good that man should be alone. Behold, I
have taken a rib from you and I have made a helper fit for you.”
The words reached into my soul as I saw the Imago Dei of another like me
beside I AM. The beauty, the grace from wince it came. My eyes welled up with
tears for the love and passion of this long awaited companion. It had seemed
like years that I had wandered with this, this Imago Dei as my helper. All the
feeling left my bones and I became stiff. I finally resolved to say something,
anything as both I AM and this other Imago Dei stood smiling at me.
“This,” I started to lose my composure and became overwhelmed with tears,
“this at last is bone of my bone and flesh and my flesh; she shall be called
Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”
