What went wrong?

The Laundress by Toulouse Lautrec - 1889

Five Aspects of Woman Series ~ Post #3

In your God-given calling to be a productive mistress of your domain, have you ever wondered why, no matter how hard you might try to keep up with things...your garden, your laundry, keeping your stuff organized, or any number of other items, that every single thing you attempt to maintain doesn’t stay organized, clean, or weed-free? Our houses wouldn't stay clean, for example, even if we would lock the door and keep everyone out. Eventually they would fill up with dust, possibly bugs, and start to smell bad. If we waited long enough, furniture and drywall would start to rot. Pipes might freeze and cause water damage. There is simply no way to keep anything in an original, pristine condition.

When Adam and Eve chose to sin against God through disobedience, they essentially corrupted the Divine image in which they were created. Their pure and innocent fellowship with Him was broken, and the day they sinned, they died spiritually. They became rebellious and hostile toward God by not trusting in His Word. God's judgment was severe and swift:

"Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field; by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return." Genesis 3:17-19

Everything in all of God’s beautiful and perfect creation is now affected by the sin of our first parents. By not trusting their Creator, they blew it. Death, both spiritual and physical, became the abnormal result for all of mankind. The whole creation is in bondage to the process of decay, and continues to groan in frustration and helplessness. To make matters worse, there was not a thing they could do to restore the perfect relationship they had with their Creator, and this has been the sad state of man ever since. As Barbara Mouser says, “We cannot think, work, moralize, sexually reproduce, or emotionally feel our way back to God.”

Even our most precious and loving relationships with others are now marred by sin. The closest of marriage partners still have to make a daily decision to love, honor, and respect each other and it takes real effort to think more highly of the other. Child-rearing is often an overwhelming challenge; friendships can be plagued with frustrations and misunderstandings. Sometimes it might even seem like it is too difficult to make the effort to be a real friend, much less to reach out to a stranger in need. None of these things come to us naturally out of the goodness of our hearts, because there IS no good in our hearts.

Our personal domains which God originally gave us to subdue and rule over and be productive in now rebel against us, just as Adam and Eve rebelled against God. In plain words, life is a struggle.

What are some of the areas of your domain where you feel the consequences of the Curse no matter how hard you try or work to bring order to things?

Next ~ So what's the remedy?

*All content of this series is based on what I learned from the study "Five Aspects of Woman" by Barbara Mouser, and taught by Helga Gross at the Hudson Community Chapel. While this summary is my own, the entire study was developed by Mrs. Mouser, and can be purchased through the International Council for Gender Studies website.