Our souls were designed to be loved by a loving father. This primal father-need in us all cannot be downplayed, diminished or dismissed. It was placed there by God. So deep is the desire for “Dad,” that even the best earthly fathers can’t entirely satisfy it. Though a good earthly father can bless us richly—instilling within us strength, confidence, and courage—they were never meant to be our end all in this area. The only one who can satiate our father-need is God—our True Father—the inventor of fatherhood, fathering, and father-love. To satisfy our soul’s search to be the much loved child of a loving father, requires each of us to look beyond our earthly father(s) to embrace our eternal Father. Our True Dad is strong enough, tender enough, concerned enough, wise enough, wealthy enough, patient enough, and engaged enough to fulfill every father-need in our soul and lovingly father us through anything our earthly dad(s) didn’t. There is nothing God wouldn’t do to prove this to you.
“So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us?” (Romans 8:31-32 MSG)
Mom’s are sacred. We don’t let anyone talk bad about our Momma. We don’t allow people to go there, and, so often—even when it’s healthy, appropriate and necessary for our heart’s healing—we don’t allow ourselves to go there either. So many of us unknowingly limp through life, never addressing these unacknowledged wounds, because it so often feels unnatural, unkind and wrong. While it’s never appropriate to blame all of the problems experienced in life on your mother (or father), it is always appropriate to kindly go there and learn more about it. I know this is sacred ground—tender territory—so you’ll want to be kind to yourself as we go through the following material.
The healing begins upon our acceptance of this incredible truth, that God not only offers to father us, but to mother us as well—affectionately and attentively meeting our mother-need—instilling within us a deep understanding that even if “my mother forsake me…the Lord will take care of me”—and will surely heal and deliver us from shame and our often less-than-abundant perspectives.
As John Eldredge notes, “As God created fatherhood, fathering, father-love and the father-need in our soul, so he created motherhood, mothering, mother-love and the mother-need in each of us.” God is the inventor of motherhood and loves us more tenderly and affectionally than any earthly mother could
“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has born? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!” (Isaiah 49:15)
Just as each of us must journey beyond our earthly father and embrace God's father-love, we must also journey beyond our earthly mother, to embrace God’s mother-love. The good news is that no matter what we did or didn’t receive from our earthly mother growing up, God can (and joyfully desires to) meet any deficiency experienced with his inexhaustible parental love. When our souls unite—attach—to God as our True Mother—we can posses the assurance that life is (not lacking, rather) satisfyingly abundant.
