Eve... chosen, blessed and loved by God

I am really enjoying IF:Equip and the Bible selections that are studied and shared with so many women world wide.   What I enjoy so much about If is each day a passage of Scripture is selected.  There isn't a study guide.  Each person is invited to share in the blog's comments.  Comments range from questions trying to understand more fully to humble convictions pressed upon their heart by God or inspired words of insight.  It has been a beautiful thing to be reading the same portion of God's word with so many women world wide and read how it is impacting each person individually and growing them. There is a sense of community felt with these women although I have never met a single one of them.
Currently, the study is on women of the Bible.  This was the first week and of course, it started with Eve.  Today's study, left me quietly smiling and feeling very refreshed. This week, I have been blessed by the fresh perspectives being shared about Eve.  So often in my life, Eve is the cursed one.  The one who brought sin into the world.  She is remembered for all that she has done wrong.  This week there has been a thread of redemption being shared about Eve and it has been beautiful to "listen" in on these sharings.  Eve made a decision and it cost her much.  So very, very much.  While there were consequences, the ones so many can recite by memory, there is a thread of love and compassion right there in Genesis that seems to be so quickly read over and is unnoticed.  Eve still experienced the presence of God in her life afterwards.  There were consequences. Yet, God after declaring what would happen, stopped and took time to make coverings for Adam and Eve.  A lesson, maybe, for how to in the future.  Afterall, it isn't like they needed to before and this was something new for them.  Later, when she gives birth, she acknowledges God's provision in the form of Cain.  Even later, when Seth is born she acknowledges the gift God has given her in light of the loss she had experienced in losing Abel.  She made a mistake, yes.  But her mistake didn't alienate her from God.  It didn't define her.  Her relationship with God changed.  Most relationships change, often it takes something bad, to fully appreciate the good.  The bad gives us a reference point to understand why good is good.  It was the first of many mistakes, the first of many sins in a story of humanity that would lead us to Jesus.  Today, I am grateful for the women, who were able to see past Eve's mistake and see her as God saw her....a woman, loved and created by God, chosen, and blessed to be the first to experience God's love, forgiveness and promise for the future.  Blessed to hear Eve not "cursed" by her "daughters" for a mistake, but grace and understanding that sometimes choices are made and the future is affected, but there is a God that loves us so much, He provides redemeption and healing and restoration.