For years, I thought God hated me. Yes, that seems a bit extreme. But that is my truth. Throughout my young adulthood, most of the Bible stories I heard or was taught were patriarchal. Noah and the flood. Abraham almost sacrificing Isaac. David killing Goliath and then ascending to the throne of Israel.

Sure. Biblical stories of women exist and I certainly read them. I learned about Eve eating the apple and bringing about sin. I was taught about the obedience and submission of Ruth, Esther, and Mary. I also heard the preachings about Mary Magdalene and her prostitution and how she grieved over her sin.

What I also heard about was submission. That women were to be quiet. That women should submit to their husbands just as their husbands would love their wives with a love equal to how the men would love themselves. But I also attended churches where women did not stand at the altar and speak. They could sing in the choir. They could lead children’s Sunday Schools. They had their place. In the pews. In front of the altar.

I read about Eve being cursed by God for sinning. And given that she was clearly told not to, well, she kind of had it coming. Right?

But throughout my life, I was told to love God the Father. God the Son. God the Holy Spirit. Which is fine. Really. But where do I exist in all this? Me with my non-feminine personality. Me with my double X chromosomes and general sense of how do I fit into all of this if I really don’t have the role models who reflect me? I’m not a man. I will never be a man. But I’m really not a lot like those other women too.

And then I started listening to the Bema podcast. And in one of the first episodes (not an introductory one), the hosts read the opening of the Bible. And they read about how the “spirit of God hovered over the Earth.” But then they actually talked about the Hebrew word for God’s spirit. Which is the same word for the breath of God or a wind. And it’s a feminine noun.

No. I’m not saying that God is a woman. Would it really matter if that was the case? No. I’m seeing God as not having a gender becuase, in the end, it really isn’t necessary. I still stick with the he/him pronouns becuase that’s what I’m used to. But to hear that the spirit of God is a feminine noun….well…suddenly, I fit. I finally, after half a century, found my place in the world of faith beyond just saying that I believed but always feeling like something was wrong with me.

Bema taught me to question what I am reading. To dig much deeper into the text and to think about the patterns that exist and how the writing unfurls. Bema taught me that the Hebrew words matter and are filled with a complexity that the English language does not necessarily duplicate or reflect. Bema gave me back my place with God.

So last year, I started dabbling with some poetry. And as I have navigated my emotions and feelings and perceptions of faith and the patriarchy and what I was taught versus what was actually written which might have a totally different purpose given that it was written for a Hebrew audience by Hebrew writers, I started thinking about Eve. What was it like for her? To be in and out of history and to be anchored with original sin? What was it for her not to have a name until after “the fall” and for her to be named by the man who was supposed to be her partner?

So I’m playing with poetry that has Eve as the speaker. And in those moments, I find myself making peace with the religions I was brought up with versus what I am learning now. That I am filled with the spirit of God. That I can be at peace in so many more ways with the Lord because He really does love me for who I am. With all my platypus quirks and triangular pegs in square holes. And I am navigating the femininity that has developed throughout history. How we perceive ourselves. How we have been taught to perceive ourselves. And how, maybe, we should perceive ourselves.

I am by no means a Biblical scholar. I am a woman of faith who reads her Bible and listens to the Bema podcast and just does her best to live like Christ. I try to be a good person and generally mess up somewhere in the process. But I’m finally knowing the joy of falling.

And getting back up.

And in doing so, I am officially writing my own chapter. “The Book of Eve.”