R&R: When You Need God to Mother You// Your *exclusive* essay and reading recommendations from Abby King

Welcome to R&R!
Your *exclusive* monthly reflection and reading recommendations to nourish your soul.

When You Need God to Mother You

 
When my siblings and I began to leave home, we had a running family joke about which parent we would call for help. If we needed money advice or had car trouble, we rang Dad. If we were ill or had questions about cooking, we rang Mum.
 
I would like to think that I’m past all that now, that twenty something years after leaving home I am finally fully independent, in need of no one. But the truth is, I still need my parents. I value their wisdom. I feel supported when they believe in me. I appreciate their consolation when things go wrong.
 
But mostly I am thankful for my parents’ unwavering commitment and care. Even though I don't live with them any more, I know without a doubt that their home is my home. I am always welcome and wanted there. They go out of their way to ensure my needs are met and that I feel cared for. There is also something incredibly comforting in being around people who have known and loved you your entire life. My Mum and Dad show this love of theirs in different ways but I need them both.
 
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If you’ve been following Jesus for even a little while, you’ll be familiar with thinking of God as father. That’s the name Jesus uses for God. The most well-known prayer in the world - the way Jesus taught us to pray - uses this language too: When you pray, say, “Our Father…“ Although God is not male, this paternal image reveals something significant about the nature and character of God.
 
But lately, I am feeling drawn to the Scripture’s images of God as mother. God, so the prophet Isaiah tells us, is like a woman giving birth; like a nursing mother who cannot forget the baby at her breast - God is the one who comforts us like a mother comforts her child (Isaiah 42:14; 49:18-19; 66:13). Elsewhere, we find that God is like a mother bird, gathering her chicks under her wings, and like a mother bear protecting her cubs (Matthew 23:37; Deuteronomy 32:11-12; Ruth 2:12; Hosea 13:8). We are told we can relate to God like a weaned child with its mother, and as the one who taught us to walk in our infancy (Psalm 131:2; Hosea 11:3-4).
 
I need these images, ‘not because God is actually a woman, but because feminine or maternal traits say something true about God’ (Japinga, Feminism and Christianity, p. 66). I need to know God as mother as much as I need to know God as father.
 
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I have never nursed an infant, but I have observed it happening many times: my mum nursing my siblings, my sisters nursing my nieces and nephews, my friends nursing their children. In those moments there is a powerful intimacy between mother and child. The mother will move heaven and earth to ensure her baby gets fed. Everything else takes a back seat and this becomes her highest priority. She knows her child needs her and there is no substitute for what she can offer. The child drinks down her liquid nourishment until they can’t contain any more; a dazed, milk-drunk look of satisfaction appearing on their face – God feeding us with God’s own body.
 
From the moment of conception, a mother nurtures and sustains the child in her womb. Before the child can offer any gifts to the world, before they have developed any talents to impress others, or given any affection to win someone’s love; before they have even taken their first breath, they are held safe and secure inside their mother, nourished and protected until the right time for them to emerge. It comes as no surprise that the Hebrew word for womb is exactly the same as the Hebrew words for mercy and compassion – God surrounding us in mercy with God’s own body.
 
There is a particular knowing that is forged in the bond between a mother and her child, too. I remember once calling my mum when I felt unwell, and her diagnosing my illness accurately over the phone. My mum is intimately acquainted with me – she knows how I’m formed. There’s something about the way a mother knows us that isn’t found in any other relationship.
 
Recently I have felt God mother me through some of my wounded places. Each time I take these hurt feelings to God, I sense God say, I know, I know. It is a simple reply but I hear in it the warmth and fullness of its empathy, tenderness and compassion. God is the mother who cares about the details of our lives, who listens with kindness and makes room for our concerns and our emotions. God is the mother who understands us and suffers through our pain with us.
 
There’s an element of maternal discipline in God’s character, too. Here’s an example:
 
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! (Luke 13:34).
 
Jesus’s lament puts me in mind of a small child fighting her mother, refusing to give in and go to sleep, even though that is her most immediate necessity. As Rich Mullins so aptly put it: I’d rather fight you for something I don’t really want than take what you give that I need.
 
I’m like that sometimes. Perhaps we all are.
 
God’s mother-love is not soft or sentimental. The prophet Hosea, after all, tells us God is a mother bear, tearing to shreds anyone who dares to threaten her cubs. It is, rather, an image of total commitment to us.
 
Back in Isaiah, we are asked:
 
Can a mother forget the baby at her breast,
And have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget, I will not forget you!
See, I have engraved you on the palm of my hands… Isaiah 49:15
 
The world we live in is broken and battered. We cannot imagine a mother deserting her baby; and yet we know it happens. Mothers are not always what they should be. Sometimes our mothers cannot give us the relationship we long for or the depth of connection we need. But God loves us deeply and will never abandon us. God as a mother speaks of God’s deep understanding of us; God’s intimate knowledge of us; God’s eternal, steadfast commitment to us. It speaks of the secure attachment we can have to our God who loves us more tenderly and more fiercely than any mother we could dream of. The nail marks in Jesus’ hands and the scars in Jesus’ side bear witness to this – God loving us infinitely with God’s own body.

Reading Recommendations
Coming Clean: A Story of Faith, by Seth Haines.

I could describe this as a book that details Seth Haines's first 90 days after giving up alcohol. And while that is true, it doesn't do justice to the power and the beauty of this writing. As Haines explains in the introduction 'this is not a book about alcoholism or alcohol dependency. It is a book about the human experience.' It's an incredibly honest, evocative, exquisitely written account. If you want something to move and inspire you, you will not be disappointed here.

The View from Rock Bottom: Discovering God's Embrace in Our Pain, by Stephanie Tait.

If anyone has experienced rock bottom, it is Stephanie Tait, so she is well-qualified to write about it. The book interweaves her personal experiences of loss and hardship with solid biblical exegesis that thoroughly debunks the prosperity gospel. It is written with both clarity and integrity and is very readable. If you need to find hope in your suffering, this may well be the book for you. 

Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others, by Barbara Brown Taylor.

Barbara Brown Taylor is a fount of wisdom. I've loved every book of hers that I've read, and this is no exception. Holy Envy explores what she learned through teaching a class on world religions and it turns out to be a lot more than you might have imagined. This book opens us up to new ways of thinking and new points of connection with people who believe in different ways than we do. It feels like such a timely and important book. If you like Richard Rohr, you'll like this book too. 

And finally...

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With love and gratitude,
Abby

PS: Look out for a fun giveaway next month!