What if God is Mother too?

Who I am, how we get here, and where (I think) we're going.

Earlier this month, I handed over my first baby.

This baby wasn’t an actual human baby (something my therapist reminded me of multiple times over the years).

It was a business that I birthed nearly seven years ago and poured my whole self into for many of those years.

Birthing, growing, and nurturing this baby – The Yoga Abbey – was all the things you can imagine: thrilling, terrifying, stretching, fulfilling, and excessively stressful. There were many years where I wasn’t sure where I ended and the business started, we were so intertwined. I deeply love The Yoga Abbey and, as every leader who’s ever stepped aside says, it truly was the honor of my lifetime to be part of this God vision for its early years.

But some time ago it became clear to me that my relationship with this first baby needed to change. I could no longer give it what it needed; my ambition, vision, and energy had been overtaken (hijacked?) by another baby – an actual human one this time.

The timing of all of this – selling my business + launching this Substack – feels rather serendipitous as my first human baby turns four this week. It’s her birthday and mine; the day she came into this world and the day my world as I knew it was obliterated. Her birth was so universe-altering that I now think about time as B.C. (before Charlie).

Life B.C. feels like a dream, the life of some other version of Caroline. What was it like to reliably fit into the same clothes year after year? To go where I wanted, when I wanted, listening to whatever I wanted? Let’s be real – I mostly worked all the time and worried about whether I was making the most of my one “wild and precious life.” I smile when I think of my earnestness and naiveté.

And also, when I close my eyes I can so viscerally remember myself back in my tiny New York apartment, bopping off to yoga classes, coffee shops, and kid-free walks in Central Park. Many times over the last few months I’ve turned to my husband and asked him if he remembered what it was like to actually look forward to the weekend that would reliably be filled with sleep, sex, and doing whatever we wanted whenever we wanted. How blissful it was to be the center of my own universe.

Anyway, here we are, four years and another baby later.

To wrap words around the experience of becoming a mother feels elusive. There is both a universality and individuality to the experience. Becoming a mother to my ferocious firstborn was different than becoming a mother to my easygoing second-born. Mothering a daughter is different than mothering a son. Mothering during a pandemic is different from mothering in whatever crazy non-pandemic times we find ourselves in today. What remains constant is how relentlessly my children need my body, my presence, and my provision.

Mothering, to me, feels profoundly spiritual. 

As I tend to my children, I feel intimately aware of the ways God tends to me. I see myself reflected in their meltdowns, complaints, and need for comfort.

As I kneel down to attune to their feelings, wipe their tears, and wrap them in my arms, I remember that this is what God longs to do for me when I am swept up in the overwhelming current of frustration and powerlessness. 

I see God reflected in the way I give even when it feels like I have nothing left to give.

“This is my body, broken for you…”

When my daughter reaches for my hand as we walk down the street sharing every thought that pops into her head, I feel God’s delight and joy swell my own heart. “Yes, this is what walking hand in hand with God is meant to be like. This is enough.”

And as I hold my little one in a dark room, rocking him to sleep, my eyes fixed on his perfect features, I sense God holding me with a loving gaze, for as long as it takes, savoring every beautiful feature.

“God is Love loving”¹

-David Fleming

When I became a parent, Jesus’ teaching that we are to call God “Father” was a revelation. The Old Testament gives us many names for God reflecting many of God’s attributes but by and large, the attributes reflected by these names emphasize God’s power, sovereignty, and might. God was something big and out there.

And then Jesus comes along and refers to God as a parent – as one who is bound to you by blood and lineage for eternity, as one who wept at your birth, as the one you call when your tire pops or you overdraw on our bank account or when your favorite team wins. This God isn’t distant. This God is intimate. 

And while Jesus refers to God as Father (making this name for God good and true and right), the Bible is also full of feminine and maternal imagery for God. Yahweh describes themself² as a birthing mother, a nursing mother, a midwife, a mourning mother, a mother hen, a mother bear, and a mother eagle. Jesus himself is depicted doing things typically reserved for women, such as preparing and serving food. 

Christ, The Mother Hen by Kelly Latimore

The Bible is full of feminine and maternal imagery for God

These days I do not have hours to spend studying my Bible, serving my church, or listening to the latest and greatest sermon. If I’m lucky, I have thirty minutes alone to shower/eat/think a complete thought. So this daily life has to be the place where God meets me and where I meet God.

The most powerful spiritual encounter I’ve had these last few years has come to me in the daily grind of mothering.

So, here we are. A Substack exploring the ideas of Mothering and God, God as Mother, and all the other things that are true about motherhood and God that don’t often get talked about.

What to expect

I’m aiming for one long-form essay a month centered on the mothering heart of God. If my children sleep past 6:30am, don’t get sick, or there are no good shows to watch, I’ll write more 👍

These essays will pull threads from Scripture, the science of mothering, and reflections from my own journey to weave a fuller picture of who God is and the sacredness of mothering.

I am writing about this as a woman in my mid-30s mothering two young children alongside my work-from-home husband. But I sincerely hope you’ll join me here whether or not our life seasons overlap. Every single one of us yearns to be mothered and our world is in desperate need of mothering. Connecting with the mothering heart of God is not just for women nursing their babies or cooking dinner for their families.

All of us are made in God’s image and invited to be transformed into God’s likeness, including, yes, as a creative, protective, nourishing, weeping, and faithful Mother.

Please subscribe!

*All subscribers* will enjoy one free post a month but *paid subscribers* will receive an additional behind the scenes post into the messy muddle of how I’m embracing the mother heart of God in my own life. These posts will be more intimate and raw, a reminder, hopefully, of how there is no destination with mothering or being mothered, just a continued becoming. 

Paid subscribers will also get to leave comments which, honestly, is the best part. The best encouragement I’ve received as a mother is, “me too.” In this unnaturally isolating mothering environment, a little solidarity goes a long way. I’d love to hear how these posts resonate with you and what Mother, God means to you.

Your paid subscriptions will help cover the costs of childcare, our Disney+ subscription, and our ever-growing Costco bill (💸💸💸).

If paying for a subscription means cutting your own Disney+ cord, then shoot me an email at caroline@carolinewilliamsyoga.com and I’ll share one with you (let the children keep watching Bluey!).

I’m super excited to be here, with you, finally writing about the thing that has consumed me the last four+ years. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

1. If we think that God loves us only if we act in a certain way, we will see our lives as a time of testing. We need to rise to the challenge, to avoid mistakes, to labor to do the right thing. But if God is Love loving, our life is a time of growing and maturing. "All the things in this world" are ways to become closer to God.” - David L. Fleming, What Is Ignatian Spirituality?

2. Ugh, how to faithfully use pronouns to describe a God who exists beyond our gender binaries? I freely admit that this feels tricky and sticky. For some, this may set off alarm bells. For others, this is not a big deal. Personally, it still feels ill-fitting to me to use feminine pronouns to refer to God, but it also feels incomplete to exclusively use male pronouns. I’m going to do my best to avoid pronouns but instead refer to God using one of the many names the Bible gives us. But, every now and then, despite my best attempts at wordsmithing, a pronoun is required. I hope you’ll go curiously and compassionately with me into this sticky space.