After we were driven from the Garden of Eden, I was surprised by the immediate change. As soon as we left the boundaries of the pristine garden, there was a horrendous feeling, like everything that mattered had vanished like the sun at night. I later came to understand this feeling as despair.

Furthermore, I found myself always looking around, never being able to relax. I would learn all too well that this was fear, for now we were surrounded by evil. For the first time in my short life, I shuddered.

The plants were not lush and green, as those in the garden had always been. Some had already turned yellowish-brown, a sign that they were dying. Furthermore, there were some plants that kept flowers from blooming, plants Adam would later call weeds. There were also sharp parts of plants that we came to know as thorns.

The ground was no longer soft and comfortable under our feet. It was cold, and we kept stepping on small rocks. Tiny bugs bit our ankles, causing them to itch.

"What have we done?" I asked rhetorically.

Adam sighed. It was impossible to know who we each blamed more for what had happened: ourselves or each other.

When we lay down to sleep that night, we didn't fall asleep in each other's arms, as was our custom. We each slept on our own patch of ground with space between us.

Clouds covered the stars, and there were no spectacular displays of light across the zenith. The night was dark, and I woke up several times because I was cold. When morning finally came, I was stiff and sore from having spent the night on the ground.

Adam was confused. Sleeping on the ground didn't bother the animals at all, and until now, it hadn't bothered us. Where could we sleep that wouldn't hurt us?

Seeing a bird building a nest gave Adam an idea. He spent the whole day trying to weave grasses together to build a nest for us, but as the grass dried, it was no longer comfortable to lie on, and the small bugs that lived in the grass tried to eat us alive.

Now my husband was more confused than ever. How were birds so comfortable in their nests? Why weren't we?

Adam theorized that maybe God hadn't made people to live in nests. Maybe we were supposed to live underground like the small creatures that Adam had named meerkats.

He spent all day trying to dig a hole large enough for us. Sweat poured down his face, drenching his entire body, and his hands turned red and formed blisters. Despite his efforts and his crudely formed digging tool, a sharp rock fastened to a branch with a vine, Adam had only begun to make progress by the time the sun began to set.

"There has to be a better way!" he announced the following morning. "I can barely move!"

While Adam tried to make a home for us, I tried to prepare the meals. However, fruit and grains were not nearly as plentiful as they had been in the garden, and the water was not nearly as pure or sweet.

Once when I was gathering water, I saw the animal that Adam called a beaver. I noticed it had a nice home of branches and mud. When I asked Adam, he immediately set to work to build a shelter of wood and clay. It was crude, but it seemed sturdy, and it offered a little protection from the scorching sun and the colder temperatures at night, especially when Adam wove grass together as a roof.

"I wonder what it would be like made of stone," he commented. "Lizards get their warmth on top of a stone, but they cool down by crawling under it. Maybe we would feel comfortable if our dwelling was made of stone."

I kissed him. "It's fine, Adam."

He sighed. "I suppose now I should try to find things for us to sleep on so we'll be more comfortable."

As I watched him leave our shelter, I wondered if we would get all our lessons from animals. Perhaps that was one of the reasons God created them. I wondered what other lessons were in store, yet I feared not all would be pleasant.