Hey everyone, I'm Dr. Allison.

Today's scripture offers us a wiser way of being human as we step into the day.

For today, we're naming something most of us have experienced, but few of us have words for.

It's that anxious moment when blame enters the room and suddenly you're not sure what's

true or what's yours to carry. Scripture gives us both honesty and wisdom here, how important it is

to take responsibility without collapsing into shame and how to stay grounded when someone else is

trying to offload their discomfort onto you.

Today's reading comes from Genesis 3, 8 through 13.

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day,

and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

But the Lord God called to the man. Where are you? The man answered, I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.

And God said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?

The man said,

The woman, you put here with me, she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.

Then the Lord God said to the woman, what is this you have done?

The woman said, the serpent deceived me,

and I ate. These are some of the most psychologically accurate lines in the whole Bible,

not because Genesis is trying to do therapy, but because it's telling the truth about what

happened when sin entered into the human story. In this moment, communion ruptures,

trust, fractures, and the first things we inherit from that fracture are painfully familiar,

hiding and blame. We hide, then we shift the blame. And yes, there's dysregulation here,

but it isn't the starting point. The dysregulation is the blame. And yes, there's dysregulation here, but it isn't the starting point. The

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