Article December 12, 1988 Issue

God's all-encompassing motherhood

We never outgrow the need to be mothered—to be nurtured and cared for. Our Father-Mother God meets this need as no one else can.

Maja Joanna Geck

To a child, mother represents security, love, and protection. Leaving childhood behind, we may feel we will never again know this kind of love and safe dependence on another. Yet mother-love and care are always available when we look away from the human picture and resolutely turn to God, our divine Father-Mother, for love.

I learned this at a time when I felt utterly alone in new surroundings. One Sunday some newfound friends asked me to go with them to church. I had not been inside a church for years and had only a nebulous idea of God. To please my friends I went along. Entering the church, I was impressed by the brightness of the auditorium and by obvious joy on the faces of the congregation. I learned that it was a Church of Christ, Scientist.

At that time I knew nothing of Christian Science or its Discoverer and Founder, Mary Baker Eddy. One of the first things I discovered was that instead of a pastor there were two Readers, who gave inspired readings from the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mrs. Eddy. When the time came for the congregation to join in the Lord's Prayer, with its spiritual interpretation, as given in Science and Health, I was astounded to hear that God was Father-Mother. I had always had a father-image of God in thought, an image of God as one who corrected and disciplined. Now here was the mother-image of love and tenderness and comfort! That was exactly what I needed.

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