Mothering God

 
I have walked with God on an intimate level for over 20 years and still I continually struggle with my image of God and 'knowing' how that image shapes me as a Child of God. The Bible is very clear in the images of God as He, Him, Spirit, Father, King, Ruler, Son, Master, etc., but feminine images are harder to come by, and when they are alluded to, it seems it is just that, an allusion.


As a woman, a Created Being that the Bible tells me was created in God's image; I yearn on a
very primitive level, a primeval level, to meet the God I resemble. I desire a mirror in God
of myself, of an image that reflects a definitive Feminine Divinity that validates me, that
validates my existence, not just as a person, but as a woman, as female, created in the image
of God. I do not want to recreate God for myself. I do not seek after a goddess. I want,no,I need God to reach down through the Word and show me how I am feminine in the image of God the
Feminine. The image of the Masculine Divine is not an image that speaks to my deep inner
“created in the image” being. It leaves me feeling outside, like I am on the wrong side of a
one-way mirror or like I am an interloper in the All Men's Club.

I do not want to throw out the image of the Masculine God. I do not want one image to dominate or discount. I want a God that is big enough to be Both.

I need my Heavenly Father. I rely on Him. I pray to Him. I love Him. I worship Him. I love His
Son, my Saviour and dearest Friend. I rejoice that the Spirit of God is always with me, that I was not left orphaned. But I feel a deep emptiness and a profound sense of loss without a Mother. I need a Whole God. And just to be perfectly clear, I am not suggesting a Fourth
Person of the Trinity. I ache to know that God is more than just the Male and that somehow I
need to adjust myself and make myself fit.

I am not male. I do not understand the male mind or emotions or drives or needs or wants. I do not have the capacity to be both male and female, and it tears at my soul that the onus is put on me to understand a Male Divine and shape myself to Him, when it is physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually impossible for me to do so. But the Creator, when creating Humans
made them male and female in the Image of God. God IS big enough to be Both and in that very
statement in Genesis, God declares that God IS Both!

The other night, I was crying out for a revelation of God, to answer the question,” God, who
are you?" I have been on a long journey that has consumed more than four years of my life,
full of incredible struggles and God's silence and my own (almost)loss of faith and it has
nearly broken me...but God is faithful and kind and abounding in steadfast mercy.

Eden and Brad Jersak have written a beautiful book called Rivers from Eden 40 days of
intimate conversation with God. In it they share their journey of learning to ask God a
pointed question and waiting in eager anticipation for God to reveal the answer through
"listening prayer." I picked this book up and began reading it, and decided, "Why not try it,
maybe tonight is the night, maybe tonight God will meet with me here."

So when I asked God, "Who are you?” I was not sure what to expect. I was literally trembling
with fear, for what if God chose once again to answer my plea with the Silence of Heaven. What
would be my response? Would I be able to handle a non-answer? But immediately I had a sense
and 'saw' a scene of me sitting on the Father's Lap in the Throne Room. This was a very
familiar image for me, as over the years I have often 'sat'on the Father's lap ( in prayer). It has always been a good place to be. I cried with relief and with deep grief, regret, sorrow and contrition. Four years of hardship poured from me to the Father, but as soon as the first
burst of emotion ceased I became restless and agitated. I was not comfortable or at ease 'sitting'on the Father's Lap. I wanted off, I needed to get away. Yet I had come to God for an answer, and was loathe to let my emotions stop me. Instead I chose to ask God what was
happening to me. Why was I so undone when what I wanted most was to be in His presence and
have His love surround and uphold me?

I felt God impressing upon me the memory of the awe and fear that I had felt as a child
towards my earthly father. I admired and loved my father, and he was (is) a wonderful warm,
loving and tender man. Yet, he was DAD. He was large and male and just his bearing was enough
to strike fear of his discipline into my heart. It was a healthy fear, but fear none-the-
less.

Then another memory, a distant almost surreal memory flooded my mind and heart. It is probably
my earliest memory. I am curled on my mother's lap and she is singing me a lullaby. I am
wrapped in a blanket and it is dark and warm and close. I am loved. Completely. Totally. I am
safe. I am complete. As this memory wrapped me in its completeness, I 'saw'the hands of God
change. One became the hand of a woman, and then the entire essence of God changed. The
hardness and roughness changed to softness and gentle curves. Then God pulled me close as a mother nursing her child and held me tight, snug, secure. As I relaxed into the Gentleness of God, I felt all the anxieties and worries and heartache of these last four years ease away.

And the healing tears flowed and flow again as I write this. Then God picked me up and laid me on Her shoulder and stroked my hair and caressed my cheek with Her own and held me cheek to
cheek and heart to heart. The answer to my query, "Who are you?” came with each stroke of Her
hand upon my head, "I AM your Mothering God."

In my darkest hours, in my neediest moments, when my soul is crying out from deep to Deep, it
is a Mother that I cry out for, a Mother that I long to have hold and comfort me. In the
natural wild that God, in infinite wisdom created, it is the mother that fights tooth and nail for her offspring. It is the mother that willingly sacrifices and teaches and nurtures and
feeds and cares and gives her all for her young. I want that Mother-God caring and fighting for me. I want a Mothering God that would die that I might live. I want a Mothering God that
would stand between me and the enemy and take the blows and the hurt and the wounds, while I
am safe in the den. I want a Mothering God that longs to gather me under Her wings and hold me
safe and near and warm.

God heard the cry of my heart and answered my prayer. My heart and my soul rest in the revelation of this complete God. I have come home! Mothering God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
is my joy and my salvation.

Yet as I rest in this revelation, in this heart-cries' answer, I fear. I fear, not God, but my
fellow Created-in-the-Image-of-God beings. I fear the condemnation, the judgement, the wrath
that this will bring my way. I fear I will be called heretic. I fear I will be labelled liberal and told that I am against all that is Godly and Holy.

I will be told to acquiesce to the image of He, Him. I will be told to create myself in the
image of God the Male.

But my heart, because of this one simple meeting between myself and God, will rest for all
eternity in the arms of my Mothering God, and there, in perfect love, fear is cast out.