God as Nurturer.
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Greta Gerwig's new narrative release of C.S. Lewis's The Magician's Nephew has caused controversy for some ;using the voice of Meryl Streep for Aslan. While I'm not going to rehash this as many have written their thoughts/opinions and theological viewpoints on this, I would like to explore this deeper and from another angle. What is so offensive exactly with attributing the female to God? We all know Jesus Christ walked the earth as a biological male. This is true whether one believes in his historical existence as a (only) mere man or as God. The contentious point in relation to Gerwig is because Aslan is a Christ figure as illustrated by Lewis therefore he must be solely depicted as male.
I would like to offer an alternative viewpoint; God has feminine qualities. Below is a testimony I wrote ten years ago detailing my experience in encountering God with feminine qualities, may you find comfort as I have and perhaps an expanded understanding of the God of the universe.
In Love, Jenna.
Years ago I ministered in a prophetic conference in Estonia on the Island of Saaremaa. I was going to share on something but Holy Spirit changed my plans. He spoke to me and said share what I told you this morning. I was messed up.
Trembling, microphone in hand I faced the audience, "Holy Spirit said to me this morning, the reason I don't raise my voice and expect to be heard is because as I was lying in the incubator in the hospital I cried but my mum never came."
Even as I write tears come to eyes. I was born two month pre-mature and my mum had to leave me at the hospital. I was too small and weak to go home with her. But God is coming to us to nurture us in all the places where we need nurture. "As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you". Isaiah 66:13
I had just read an article recently about a woman missionary who walked into an orphanage expecting an onslaught of 100 crying babies. The place was dead silent. She was told the babies don't cry, after experiencing many hours of crying after birth, and no-one comes due to abandonment, they give up crying.
I rarely cried as a child and teenager. Looking back I realise I never asked for comfort either. Holy Spirit is now wanting to restore me. He is wanting to restore all of us in the places where we need nurture, compassion and mercy. He is the God of all comfort. He wants us to suckle from his never-ending goodness. (I wasn't breast fed either) I'm learning how to receive from Him. Life that sustains me, life I have a right to have. Every child born needs milk to survive and thrive. We need the milk of God's love. It is our right to receive and His joy to give. He first loved us. We were birthed from Him. It is He who formed us in our mother's womb.
And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth. Exodus 34:6
That word mercy there according to Jewish scholar Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler is a transliteration of 'womb.' ( see below for ref.)
When God created the heavens and the earth Genesis 1 says "the Sprit of God moved over the face of the waters" The word moved there means to grow soft or quiver. It is used when a mother bird broods over her nest, she flutters her wings, she moves over her young. God was nurturing, cherishing and protecting His creation. We can see His feminine qualities from the beginning.
God is neither male nor female since in His image he created both male and female. He has within Himself both masculine and feminine qualities. We have easily understood the masculine qualities of God but we have overlooked His feminine qualities.
We are in a time where God is speaking to His children of His comfort and nurture. The very life of God given to us from His breast.
Isaiah 66:11-13 NIV says,
"For you will nurse and be satisfied at her comforting breasts; you will drink deeply and delight in her overflowing abundance."
For this is what the LORD says: "I will extend peace to her like a river, and the wealth of nations like a flooding stream; you will nurse and be carried on her arm and dandled on her knees.
As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you; and you will be comforted over Jerusalem."
In the same week after God spoke to me regarding his or her's (If I was Finnish I would use the word hän which does not denote gender pronoun at all but only uses one for everybody) mother's love for me, my earthly mother wrote me saying she was sorry for not being more in contact with me, it was her responsibility since she's the mum. (We had never discussed this although I had felt sadness in this area) something shifted in the spirit it was a sign of healing.
He wants us to know Him in all His fullness, all His characteristics. He wants to restore areas in our lives that have been devastated. I may have missed out on the full nurture of my earthly mother but now I have one greater who is coming to nurture me. Your God as like a mother is coming to nurture you also.
https://sefaria.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/4576