Picking Yourself Up

How does a person live on after a major set back? When mistakes are made and the wrongdoer is punished, how does he or she pick up and go on? What if he or she was punished for a mistake that was not theirs alone? What if he or she was singled out unfairly and made the focal point of people’s frustrations and disappointments? How do people carry on without just giving up?

Genesis 4:17-26
"Cain lay with his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Cain was then building a city, and he named it after his son Enoch. 18 To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad was the father of Mehujael, and Mehujael was the father of Methushael, and Methushael was the father of Lamech. 19 Lamech married two women, one named Adah and the other Zillah. 20 Adah gave birth to Jabal; he was the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock. 21 His brother's name was Jubal; he was the father of all who play the harp and flute. 22 Zillah also had a son, Tubal-Cain, who forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron. Tubal-Cain's sister was Naamah. 23 Lamech said to his wives, "Adah and Zillah, listen to me; wives of Lamech, hear my words. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for injuring me. 24 If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times." 25 Adam lay with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, saying, "God has granted me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him." 26 Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh. At that time men began to call on the name of the LORD." 

This account of the early biblical history of humanity is at times puzzling, because the Scripture does not explain what would seem to modern readers as very basic questions, namely: 1) where did Cain’s wife come from? and 2) how could Cain build a city if there were only a handful of people in the world, a group out of which Cain had been cast? There are speculative explanations, such as Adam and Eve had other children that Genesis does not mention, and so Cain married one of his sisters or nieces, but that does not explain how Cain was building a city. We will probably never know the answers on this side of life.

Cain had committed the first murder, and was rightly punished by being cursed and cast away from God’s presence. His great-great-great-grandson Lamech also killed someone, and pronounced a curse upon himself in the form of a poem to his two wives. But how could Cain live with himself after that terrible act? He must have paid for it countless times throughout his life, and yet he went on to build a city. Life goes on, even after terrible mistakes are made, and pretty soon nearly everyone but yourself has forgotten. Hopefully Cain was able to draw wisdom from the experience. We can only hope to do the same when we make terrible mistakes. The alternative is to remain frozen at the point of the consequences of your mistake, permanently fixed and defined for the rest of your life, a worse curse if there ever was one.