and God said, "let there be light."

Genesis 1-3 is about the beginning of time. It explains how God created the Earth and everything it encompasses. It then goes on to explain how God created Adam and Eve, the first man and woman to walk the Earth. Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden and were perfectly happy, perfectly at peace so much that they "were both naked, and they felt no shame." Genesis then goes on to explain how mankind, in essence, got to where we are today. Where sin really started, when Eve ate the apple from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 

There are a million ways to analyze the Bible and that's how it's supposed to be. Every parable Jesus told could be taken many different ways to apply to all the different lives of all the different people who were listening to him. Now these first three chapters are not a parable but there are still many ways any one person could analyze them. One way to analyze them is morally. A huge moral issue is brought up in these first three chapters of the Bible. Adam and Eve were told they could eat from any tree except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eve disobeyed God's word and ate from the tree anyways, sharing some of the fruit with her husband Adam. When Adam and Eve ate the fruit their eyes were opened, they realized they were naked, and they felt ashamed and they were then cursed out of the Garden of Eden. It is here that the idea that there is always a consequence for any action is brought up. Even though this occurred at the beginning of time, this still applies today. When anyone is told that they cannot do something, it makes that person want to do it more and sometimes we forget that there is always a consequence for our actions and let our curiosity get the best of us.      

Raised in church, I am what some people call a "Cradle Catholic". Because I have been attending mass and Sunday school since before I can remember I am pretty knowledgeable about Jesus, the Bible, and my religion. For a long time that was good enough for me, I was a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, an all around good person. My sin consisted of lying to my mom or bossing around my little sister. I can't really pinpoint when all of that stopped but it did. Having all that head knowledge of Jesus, the Bible, and my religion was no longer good enough because that's all it was. Head knowledge. I knew it in my head, but not in my heart. The concept of Jesus's love and Him dying on the cross for my sins was too abstract for me to grasp with just hearing the gospel at mass. When I was in eighth grade I met Elizabeth Cox, a wyldlife leader at my school. Having a similar back story as me she understood what it was like to have to head knowledge without really believing it in your heart, she put it in words and examples that I could understand and slowly but surely I began to understand. It was like God said, "let there be light" and just like that a light bulb went off in my head and I understood. By no means am I a perfect Christian now. I still sin and struggle with a lot but having that security in my faith, that real security you feel in your heart, is a huge part of my life and is the reason for why I believe what I believe.