When We Were Eve: Uncovering the Woman God Created You to Be

by Colleen C. Mitchell Narrated by Colleen C. Mitchell

Overview

¿We are walking back to the Garden of Eden together and trying to remember who were when we were Eve.¿

In When We Were Eve, Colleen Mitchell draws on the creation story in Genesis to show women God¿s gracious plan for their whole being: body and soul in harmony with themselves, others, creation and their Creator. Through her own story and those of other women, she explores the many ways women struggle with their bodies and the way a biblical understanding of what it means to be a woman can bring them peace and joy.

¿Eve in Eden is woman in her perfection¿, writes Mitchell. ¿The last note of the creation song states that the man and his wife were both naked and they were not ashamed.... This is the perfected state of our humanityamp;mdash;vulnerable, open, aware of our bodies and ourselves and understanding of others. Intimately free to be who we are before God.¿

Through the stories of Eve (before and after the Fall), Bathsheba, Hannah, the woman of Proverbs 31, Sarah from the Book of Tobit, the hemorrhaging woman in Mark¿s Gospel, the synagogue leader¿s daughter, and the bride from the Song of Songs, she helps readers find new perspectives on what it means to be a woman: young, old, single, married, mothers, nurturers, strong and vulnerable, loving and being loved.

Questions for reflection encourage listeners to deepen their own awareness and a final section offers prayers for the many seasons and circumstances of a woman¿s life.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"My personal experience reading When We Were Eve can be summarized in the following quote. “Our lives are ripe with experiences that both bless and curse us at once, and leave us feeling like strangers who occupy a body that is mostly foreign to us ... You Are Not Alone.” Colleen Mitchell's book contains all the elements a women's book club craves — a walk through the Scriptures, engaging storytelling, and thoughtful questions to ponder. Her story is personal and vulnerable yet her experiences are universal. Every woman reading When We Were Eve will eventually recognize herself within its pages. As if Colleen's story was not gripping enough, she has assembled an incredible group of women who bear their hearts and reaffirm Colleen's ascertain that we are truly not alone. I found myself alternating from nodding in emphatic agreement to wiping away tears as if were my deepest wounds being gently exposed. When I turned the last page and closed When We Were Eve, those wounds felt mended and my heart on a new path of healing.” — Allison Gingras, www.ReconciledToYou.com
 
"I want to get a copy of this book for every woman I know. We're all riddled with insecurities about who we are and what we look like, and Colleen Mitchell has powerful words of wisdom to help us find peace and joy in simply the women God created us to be." — Jennifer Fulwiler, SiriusXM radio host,  author, One Beautiful Dream
 
"When We Were Eve: Uncovering the Woman God Made You to Be by Colleen C. Mitchell is a rich and grace-filled book written by a woman whose pen in hand reveals a body and soul in love with God. “Our bodies must pursue holiness,” Colleen reminds all of us. Colleen’s writing talent is a true gift of the Lord to all readers, but especially to we women. As you read, your feminine heart will see God’s image in your body and your spirit. Then Colleen shows us, in her reflections and the collected stories from women who strive for sanctity, just exactly how to use our spirituality and our bodily experiences to seek our God. You will “find [yourself]...embracing womanhood without shame!” By the end of this read, you will revel in His great Mercy, bringing you back to Eden in the Sacraments of Holy Mother Church, the Bride of Christ!" — Carol Younger, author,  33 Days to Morning Glory Retreat Companion, contributing author, Walk in Her Sandals
 

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169996913
Publisher:	Franciscan Media
Publication date:	01/10/2018
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Naked and Unashamed

Women and the Eden Instinct

So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

— Genesis 1:27

But for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.

— Genesis 2:20–22

And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.

— Genesis 2:25

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When I was a small child, we lived just down the street from my grandmother. We went often to her house to play in her yard and savor the crispy goodness of the sugar cookies she kept in the freezer just inside the back door. But the spot we longed for most, the spot that belonged to us and was where we belonged, was under the branches of the grand pecan tree whose shade filled her backyard.

My grandmother died when I was a little more than three years old, and her house was sold a few years later. We moved not long after that. I do not have many clear memories under that pecan tree — a fourth birthday party where a man parked a miniscule carousel on a trailer in its shade, all the times I wed the neighbor boy standing tiptoe on the tree roots holding a bouquet of wilting weeds while his sister and my cousins officiated. I don't know if it is my personal memory of that pecan tree that drapes it in safety and goodness in my mind or the collective family memory surrounding it that has dressed up my own foggy ones more beautifully than they deserve. But I know this: the smell of warm dirt and the prick of grass on the back of my thighs can bring me right back to the feeling of safety and joy — real, borrowed, or imagined — that I knew when I was tucked under the reaching arms of that tree.

Because of this memory, it makes sense to me that God would have designed, before he breathed humanity into existence, a garden of goodness to be their dwelling place. Just as I look back with foggy but curious wonder at that pecan tree in my grandmother's backyard, so I consider the Garden of Eden and its inhabitants.

It is that fog, that uncertainty about who we were in the garden, and the question of who Eve was that has been haunting me for some time now. I try to figure what I know of her in the same way I try to divine the truth of the unfamiliar familiarity I have with that pecan tree. How much of what I know of Eve is completely imagined, assumed, or created from blind feelings? Sure, I have the book of Genesis to guide me. It gives me a healthy glimpse at the first woman and a bit of her life in Eden. But even then, what of my interpretation is borrowed from a collective Christian understanding of who she was? What, if anything, do I know of Eve that is real and unique to me? Is there some instinct from the heart of the first woman that is imprinted on my spiritual and physical DNA? And if it turns out that most of what I know is simply a longing to know more of her, a female fancy to understand this "Mother of All the Living" who was all of us women at once at creation, is there something real in that?

I am certain I possess a kind of Eden instinct that draws me back to her, with a desire to understand what it means for me to be woman after her. I have come to think that all of us women might be imbued with an innate sense that if we could somehow clear the fog of the Eden memories and untangle Eve from them in order to know her better, we might find that we know ourselves better too. We have Mary as mother and guidepost of womanhood, and yet still, for me, there is a longing for the first woman, to know what it was like to be women when God's fingerprints were still fresh on our skin and we lived our Eden existence, when our flesh was free from the concupiscence of sin and the entire world lived in its original innocence. I am curious to know woman as she was when God dreamed her into existence.

If we are to follow that curiosity, we must begin such an unraveling, we must begin in Genesis, at that moment in which man and woman came to be. Let us consider, then, Eve at creation.

~ Considering Creation ~

In the Genesis account, Eve is God's final and most eagerly anticipated creation. The story of creation commences with the Spirit of God moving across the void. We tend to think of this as the beginning of God in our Christian knowledge of him, yet because we recognize that God exists outside of time and space, and that God is immutable and unchangeable, we know that this cannot be the true beginning of God, who always was, always is, and always will be. What we know of the God who has always existed is that he is good, he is love, and he always has been.

When we consider creation from that perspective, it takes on a new significance. Everything that God created was born of his love and born from his goodness. Every created thing is born into goodness for the purpose of love. The whole created world was pleasing to God in that respect, so much so that "it is good" becomes the refrain of the creation story.

God moves across a void and delineates spaces in wide swaths — sky, sea, land. In increasing detail, creativity, and wonder, he begins to fill the world with his goodness. Plants and trees and the flowers that bloom on them. Stars and constellations, wind and waves, and the creatures that fill the sea. Daisies and dandelions, Venus flytraps and crimson roses. Tadpoles that turn into toads and starfish and dolphins and anemones that swish their colors with the currents. Then he fills the sky with birds who build nests and lay eggs in those trees — magpies andtoucans and bald eagles and tiny, flitting hummingbirds. Bees begin to buzz, and beetles shine on forest floors. Then he waves his hand over the earth, and giraffes roam the savanna on one side while buffalo herds trample the plains on the other. Polar bears romp through the ice at its tip, and penguins splash into the water on the reverse pole.

And then, in what I imagine is clearly meant to be a crescendo of the symphony of creation — in which both action and sentiment reach unparalleled levels that draw us up and out of ourselves to be lost in the glorious rush of it all — "male and female he creates them, in his image he creates [us]."

While God does not repeat the refrain "it is good" when it comes to the creation of man, it is, of course, a presupposed fact, because he states that they have been created in the image of God, who we know has always existed as goodness and love. It is interesting to consider that God created them "in his image" and "male and female" in Chapter 1 of Genesis, while the story of the creation of man and woman as distinct and separate forms does not appear until chapter 2 of Genesis.

This double-sided perspective suggests the timeless reality of God. From outside of time, humanity in its male and female forms, both created in his image, were thought of and planned for. Woman does not come along after man in the way a postscript tags on to the important part of a letter, or the encore is a short redo at the end of a stellar performance. No, from eternity man and woman were thought of by God, and at a given point in time, his creative impulse brought them into being along with, yet different from, the rest of the created world.

God brings man into being in a culmination of his creative force, and an increasing desire for relationship with his creatures. Everything else in creation simply springs forth from his word, coming to be as soon as he speaks it into being. Man, however, is fashioned. God considers man as he forms him. He molds the dirt of the earth into a human form with his hands, covers it with his touch, imprinting his image on it as he does. Then he breathes life into man. Here is our evidence that man is unique in all of creation. He is brought to life by the breath of God. God fills man with his own life, exhaling himself into humanity, in order that man might live.

What a distinct difference from the way the rest of creation comes to be! Men are fashioned and filled with the life of God and then given dominion over the rest of creation. God offers man to creation as its caretaker and creation to man as his source of well-being. And he delights in the fact that man bears his image.

And yet — oh, what an "and yet" it is! After all that progression from void to more detailed and imaginative creation, to breathing his life into a human and fashioning him in his likeness, God turns and looks at the created world, and for the only time in the whole creation narrative, his response is that it is not good. "It is not good that man should be alone," he declares in Genesis 2:18, and he sets about fashioning him a helper.

Stop for a moment and think what this might mean. God looked at the world he had created, teeming with life, stars flung across the heavens, every bird and bug and animal and flower in its most glorious state, the rivers and mountains and valleys and seas, and man — perfect in his reflection of the image of God — he looked at all of that, and saw that it was incomplete, that something was still missing. Before the Lord of the universe could sit back and rest, knowing his creative work was done, he longed for one more thing — he longed to bring woman to life.

At the culmination of God's creative love, we arrive at the shaping of woman, whom God forms from the rib bone of man to be helper and partner to him when no other created being suffices to fill that void. In all the world, nothing exists that can fulfill the need for woman. So God again sets about fashioning a being, this time, putting man into a deep sleep, opening him up, taking from him a rib bone, and shaping it into woman.

It is interesting that woman is not molded, but pieced together, starting from the strength of bone, the life-giving core of marrow, and becoming, layer by layer, softer and fuller, more and more of the image of God as he brings her to life. She is formed from the rib, the bone meant to protect the lungs of man into which God first breathed his own life. Woman is gifted to man and all of creation as helper, protector of the life of God within it, made to expand to cradle growth and contract to blow away what is not life-giving, strong but pliable enough to withstand the pressure of the responsibility with which she is charged.

And when God sees woman, what he sees is not simply spirit, but her physical body, itself a reflection of him. Rather than proclaiming its goodness himself, he leaves the refrain to Adam, who stands in place of all humanity as he proclaims with joy her name, "Woman," spoken for the first time in gratitude for the gift that she is. For woman is the only aspect in all of creation, its final, sweet note, that God gives to the rest of the created world as gift. "Here," he says, "I see you are missing something. Here she is. My woman. Now you are all I ever imagined you would be."

In the physical existence of woman, God's longing for a relationship with the created world and his desire for the good of humanity are met, and he is able to rest. Woman becomes gift not just to the world, but also to God himself, who finds his last longing fulfilled and rests in his satisfaction.

~ A Walk in the Garden ~

The created world complete, there is nothing left but the living for man and woman. Wonder for a moment about that first morning Eve woke up and was woman. Did she instinctively know who she was? Did she understand fully what it meant, this name of hers, "Mother of All the Living"? Did she run her fingers through her hair and twirl it up off her shoulders in a knot, as women do? Did she know straight away what her feet were and that the curve of her neck was lovely in its softness and that her hips could delight her with their sway? Did she know what her breasts were for, that they had the capacity to nourish new life?

What in all of creation did woman run to first? Did she smell a rose and only after learn it had thorns? Did she pet a soft kitten and giggle when it licked her hand or stand in silent awe at the running rivers as she learned the sound of their song? What did she eat first, and what did it taste like, that first perfect bite of the first perfect food? Was it a sticky, sweet orange, and did she let it drip down her chin and onto her neck without hesitation while she sucked its goodness from the pulpy flesh? Or did she pull a crunchy carrot up by its green top, wash it in the river and break it between her teeth, delighted by its decisive snap and crispness?

When Eve stood before Adam for the first time and let him look full upon her, did she know without a doubt how her mind and heart and body should respond to him? Was total self-donation easy and natural and without reserve for this first woman? Did she understand the intimacy of love and the pleasure of sex from the get-go? Did she know how to give with her body and receive with her body while her mind and her heart stayed right there in the moment too? What did woman's first sexual climax feel like?

And what did it look for God to be fully present to woman in the garden? Did Eve hear his voice, or did she not need to because she lived in perfect communion with him? Did she understand his love for her fully, and how did she respond to it? Did he teach her about creation and what it means to be human as she walked with him alone in the garden? Did she understand the Trinity? What did Eve look like when she prayed?

While I cannot know the answers to all of these questions, here's what I think we can know: Eve in Eden is woman in her perfection. God, even before he made humanity, creates a garden where they will live. He fills it with all the good things they will need. Eden is creation at its perfection, and Eve is woman in her unblemished form. The last note of the creation song states that the man and his wife were both naked and they were not ashamed. Nakedness without shame. This is how woman was meant to live. This is the perfected state of our humanity — vulnerable, open, aware of our bodies and ourselves and understanding of others. Intimately free to be who we are before God. So, yes, I think Eve probably knew and understood right away who she was and what it meant to be woman, physically and spiritually. I think she knew the beauty of creation and enjoyed it freely and fully. I think she knew exactly how to love Adam, and, yes, I think they had fantastically pleasurable sex.

Consider Eve. While she lives under obedience to God's single command to her, she lives in perfect communion with her Creator. The garden itself is the best of the created world, and Eve lives in perfect harmony with creation. The creature in perfect assent to the will of the Creator enjoys the fruits of his creation without blemish. Eve enjoys that same harmony with Adam. He too is a creature living in his ideal state with the Creator and his creation. Their unitive bond is unbroken, and it mirrors perfectly the consummate love of God for them. In this state of communion with her Creator, his creation, and her fellow creature, Eve attains the last blessed gift of Eden — living in perfect harmony with herself — naked and unashamed.

This, I think, is every woman's great longing, our Eden instinct. Before woman became women who mirror God in a million glistening ways like snowflakes strung across time, there was a single woman, and womanhood meant this singular thing — the female soul joined to the female body in a perfect communion of being that made her capable of intimacy, communion, harmony, and self-awareness without the pain of shame. She lived naked in both aspects of self — her soul bare before her God and her body bare before the world.

I believe each of us, now unique of our womanhood in as many ways as there are women, still possess one common quality — the longing for that harmony. We feel it deep within us, the instinct to live free of shame, naked and vulnerable before our God and the world. The longing to know ourselves fully and not be afraid of who and what we are is a calling inside every woman. It is the map back to Eden imprinted on our souls and desired by our flesh. We long to know what it meant to be woman when we were Eve — to have that relationship with God, with man, with ourselves, with food and love and sex and our bodies. Eden's blessing calls us, and we spend our lives, if we are pursuing God earnestly, trying to unravel what it means to be Eve, to live naked and unashamed before him.

The task for us is that womanhood doesn't come to us the way it came to Eve. We are not born being woman as she was but instead are born into a becoming, a process that is constant and ongoing in our lives. And as we become, our minds learn, our hearts expand in their capacity to give and receive love, and our bodies undergo a near constant metamorphosis. Womanhood becomes a holy work of learning how to become ever more who we were when we were Eve. As much as we joke about women being a mystery to men, I think the truth is that we are just as often a mystery to ourselves, a beautiful, holy mystery whose revelation is at once sacred and confounding to us. Perhaps it might make us envy Eve, who simply was woman from the first moment of her incarnation. But this journey into who we are is such a worthy walk for us. And we are not without a map.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "When We Were Eve"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Colleen C. Mitchell.
Excerpted by permission of Franciscan Media.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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