If you have ever spent any real time with young children, you already know.
The questions never stop. Why did you do that? Who is that? What's that? Are we there yet? Over and over — relentless, exhausting, and honestly, kind of beautiful when you think about it.
I have been working on the practice of being still and listening to God more intentionally this past year. And during one of those quiet moments with Him, a question surfaced in me that I haven't been able to shake:
When did we stop being curious?
Somewhere between childhood and adulthood, that natural, uninhibited curiosity dims for most of us. And it doesn't usually happen all at once. It happens slowly — through rejection, through shame, through the accumulation of moments where our questions were met with impatience, dismissal, or disapproval. We learned, without anyone having to say it directly, that questions were a bother. That wondering out loud made us difficult. That the safest thing to do was accept what we were told and keep moving.
Many of us were shaped by a phrase we heard early and often:
Maybe it came from a grandparent who meant no harm. A Sunday school teacher. A pastor. Spoken casually, as though it were simply true. But I did a deep dive into that phrase, because I have become increasingly sensitive to the impact of that kind of messaging in the lives of my sisters and their daughters. What I found was not innocent at all.
That phrase is actually the evolution of a 15th-century saying, coined by a religious official to reflect the societal and patriarchal norms of the medieval church. It was designed to enforce obedience, modesty, and silence — specifically directed at young women. And its theological roots? The Fall. Genesis 3 was used to argue that women were inherently more susceptible to deception and sin, and therefore needed to be controlled, quieted, managed.
From the garden to now, the enemy has worked tirelessly to distort the Word of God and sow seeds of doubt — not just in our relationship with Him, but in our understanding of ourselves.
Learning that history sent me back to Genesis 3 with fresh eyes. And what I found there shook something loose in me.
I realized that the lens through which I had been viewing my identity as a woman had been shaped by an incomplete theology of The Fall. My identity as an image bearer had been quietly interrupted, and for most of my life, I had accepted the version that was handed down to me without ever thinking to question it.
I couldn't help but wonder: how many other women are struggling daily in their faith because of a view that has, for generations, assigned to God the voice of patriarchy in a fallen world — rather than the voice of a Creator who looked at what He made and called it very good?
Like Eve, who reasoned with the serpent when he asked, “Did God really say…?” we engage with doubts that were designed to separate us from God, not draw us closer. We spend our energy defending, explaining, and seeking validation from the wrong sources — all the while unaware of the slow drift away from the place of peace and connection He always intended for us to live in.
But here is the part of the story I don't want you to miss.
After the fall. After the hiding. After the fig leaves. God still showed up. He came walking into the garden — into the very place of intimacy and presence — and He asked a question.
God was not confused. He knew exactly where they were and exactly who He had created them to be. His question wasn't an accusation. It was an invitation. A gentle, persistent call to come out of hiding. To stop reasoning with the voice that introduced shame and start engaging with the One who called you good.
He is extending that same invitation to you today.
You are allowed to ask God why. You are allowed to be curious, unsure, and full of honest questions. That is not a lack of faith — that is the faith of a child, and Jesus not only welcomed it, He said it was the very kind of faith that opens the Kingdom.
The garden was never lost. God has been walking in it, calling your name. Maybe today is the day you answer.
Garden Living is the process of recovering what has always been true: you bear the image of God. You carry divine purpose. You were built for deep, life-giving relationship with Him. The garden is where you remember who you were created to be, and where God always intended you to dwell.
Whole. Known. Free. This is your invitation.