Havah: The Story of Eve by Tosca Lee

Have you ever wondered what it must have been like in the Garden of Eden? How it might have been to walk with God? Have you ever wondered why Eve ate the fruit that condemned humanity to a life of sin? Ever been curious about Adam and Eve’s life afterward, the sense of loss and failure they endured?

Tosca Lee wondered, and her musings brought her to a story–Havah: the Story of Eve. I’ve just finished reading it and am staring out the window, still lost in Eve’s world, still lost in the anguish of that single decision, in the grief of knowing one son slew the other, in the desperate clinging to the promise God made, that her seed, Eve’s seed, would grind the serpent into the earth. Watching, waiting for it to happen, that they might be forgiven and re-enter Eden.

We don’t know what it was like to have been completely pure, innocent, and free before God. Nor does Tosca Lee. But she imagines it with such poetic grace that I am swept up in this vision–this story–with her. Thank you, Tosca, for allowing me this glimpse. I’m in awe.

I have seen paradise and ruin. I have known bliss and terror.

I have walked with God.

And I know that God made the heart the most fragile and resilient of organs, that a lifetime of joy and pain might be encased in one mortal chamber.

I still remember my first moment of consciousness–an awareness I’ve never seen in the eyes of any of my own children at birth: the sheer ignorance and genius of consciousness, when we know nothing and accept everything.

Of course, the memory of that waking moment is fainter now, like the smell of the soil of that garden, like the leaves of the fig tree in Eden after dawn–dew and leaf green. It fades with that sense of something once tasted on the tip of the tongue, savored now in memory, replaced by the taste of something similar but never quite the same.

His breath a lost sough, the scent of earth and leaf mold that was his sweaty skin has faded too quickly. So like an Eden dawn–dew on fig leaves.

His eyes were blue, my Adam’s.

***

My seasons are nearly as many as a thousand. So now listen, sons, and hear me, daughters. I, Havah, fashioned by God of Adam, say this:

In the beginning, there was God…

But for me, there was Adam.

Please read this book. Whether you read as one who believes or as one who looks upon Adam and Eve as merely a legend, read this book. It’s poignantly beautiful. You’ll be glad you did.