Two Gardens and Sufferingনমুনা

I’ve been thinking a lot about the question of where suffering came from. For as long as I have lived I’ve been surrounded by suffering. Being born to a poor black woman in the Jim Crow South was just the beginning of a life of suffering. I have suffered the loss of my brother, and two of my sons. I’ve suffered physical pain and torture and repeated visits with the arrows of cancer. But I am not alone in this. Suffering is everywhere.

With the arrival of the coronavirus, we are experiencing suffering around the world in a way that has never happened before. From China, to Japan, Korea, Europe, South America, to the United States—there is mass suffering. The young and the elderly are dying. People are suffering the loss of employment and are struggling to survive like we struggled during the Great Depression. I never thought that I’d see food lines like this all over the country again. People who have never had to ask for help before are finding it necessary, just to feed their families . . . suffering.

Suffering is everywhere . . . but where did it come from?

When I read my Bible, I see God creating a perfect world for the first man and the first woman. Life in the Garden of Eden must have been awesome. It was full of happiness and joy every day. The garden was abundant with trees that they could eat from. “The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food” (Gen. 2:9a). I imagine it was God’s intention for people to live like that always, enjoying life and having fellowship with Him. But Genesis 3, records a conversation between Eve and the serpent that changed everything. He tempted her to question God’s goodness and God’s heart for her. She gave in to the temptation, drawing Adam along.

The first sign that something was wrong was when God came into the garden after they had eaten of the forbidden fruit. He had been coming into the garden in the cool of the day and having fellowship with them. Now the Lord returns, and they've gone into hiding. He calls out to Adam, “Where are you, Adam?” Adam was hiding because he was afraid. He realized that he was naked. Fear was the first consequence of the fall, and it is deadly.

I think fear is like psychological torture. That’s a special kind of suffering. It has had me in its grips so many times. I’ve found that only one or two percent of my fears ever come to pass—but still, the soul damage is done.

Fear damages our trust and challenges what we really believe. During the Great Depression, the whole nation was overcome with fear—like so many of us are today. Many ran to the banks and withdrew all their money. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s response has become a classic: “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” He went on to challenge everyone to stay away from “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes.” Fear does paralyze. And it can get the best of us, especially when we suffer. And it all started in the garden . . . and so did death.