Getting back to Eden

"Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame." ~ Genesis 2:25

Shame. How often is shame unknowingly brought into our relationships? Shame from childhood experiences? Bullies from our teenage years? Fear of failure in our job? "Innocent" teasing from our spouse, friends, co-workers? The circumstances are endless. Like nocturnal creatures of the night, shame hides in the dark recesses throughout our lives, hoping to never be uncovered or discovered.

How does shame find us and how does it grow?

• Shame finds us in our false perceptions of circumstances and innocent misinterpretations of childhood friends and life encounters. These misconceived ideas are often carried throughout our teenage years and into adulthood, abandoning us to conclude on opinions grounded in misinformation, aka lies.

• Another place shame catches us is lurking in dark corners of a tormentor's belittlement, accusation, mockery, or anger. Thus, rendering our identity helpless against such words and actions.

• And last, shame weaves itself throughout the fabric of our faith when we listen to the ultimate accuser, the father of lies, speaking partial truths, accusing us of our past actions even after we've been forgiven and redeemed.

Shame is often the result of guilt or failure, whether by someone else's actions toward us or our own life choices. When perceived as fact, shame becomes like a heavy mantle weighing on our shoulders. It can be put upon us by someone's actions or words feeding lies we already believe and/or conjuring up new thoughts based on circumstantial, momentary emotions. Bottom line: shame is rooted in lies we believe.

Is it possible to find the freedom of Eden again?

The answer is "yes."

Eden. A place where man and woman can be completely transparent, vulnerable, naked to the core as they face each other. Naked and unashamed —in every way.

In the beginning, the man and the woman were given one boundary in order to live inside true love and ultimate freedom. Their vast garden donned beautiful flora and was lush with vegetables and fruit of all kinds. Berry bushes and trees bearing the most delicious fruits peppered the Garden of beauty. This unique couple was meant to indulge in their living space, in each other's cherished

adoration, and most importantly, in their Designer's intentional love. As ultimate freedom requires boundaries in order to thrive, only one boundary was set: they were not to eat from the Tree in the center of the Garden. Through deception, rationalizing their instructions to not eat from that beautiful Tree, and justifying their baby steps toward self actualization, they experienced shame for the first time. (My paraphrase of Genesis 2:4b-3)

From southern Texas to the east coast of Virginia, Neil behind the steering wheel in one vehicle, and I in the other, my eyes remained glued on his tail lights. Bluetooths in our ears and our boys with their devices in the passenger seats, we spent literally hours on the phone verbally strolling through what once was our Eden.

How did we get here? 

Tracing back over the memories of childhood leading into our young adulthood and marriage, we uncovered raw emotions from old wounds. Emotions quickly surfaced as we unpacked heartache and failures. The more we gently dug into the dark and abandoned corners of our pasts, we found perspectives rooted in lies we believed about ourselves which led to lies we believed about each other and our marriage, and even God. Before this three-day excursion, we had no idea how many lies and misperceptions we embraced over the years! We discovered pain that was thought to be dead and buried in our pasts. The impact of words spoken from childhood left indelible marks on our view of ourselves, then dictating how we must live life.

What gutted me the most was learning what we each believed the other thought about ourselves. Here we were thinking we loved each other well. Did we? Perhaps, to a point. But only during those three days after being married for nearly eighteen years, did we begin to see how much we missed by ignorantly believing lies. Only at that point, as truth began to light up our darkened corners, could we begin seeing our shame.

Hour after hour, we weighed our words, gentle to express and humble to receive, speaking truth to each other. No accusations were made to communicate. Just raw honesty, humility, and love. When we didn't know what to say, we prayed over each other and allowed the Holy Spirit to speak. Truth-Speaking-Spirit cradling our hearts, ever so gently cracking our hearts in places in order to heal and strengthen our wounded spirits. As lies faced off with truth, we came out of agreement with what what we formerly believed and aligned ourselves with Truth from God's Word. Over those few days, years of shame disappeared, and both Neil and I found and literally felt the most freedom within ourselves and in our marriage for the first time.

That was the beginning of re-building our beautiful garden —our Eden.