Is God Nurturing?

I ask this question because as I was reading a book about Experiencing the Father's Embrace it touched on the mother wound. I realized that over the years God has done so much healing and transformation in me around the wound of my father's suicide. This train wreck through the center of my life, has been the focus of much prayer and healing. So to realize that God wanted to be nurture me like a mother to fill the places where I did not receive was a surprise to me. I had not seen God as nurturing or in anyway mothering. Don't let me lose you here, there have been distortions by New Agers about Mother God. Yet as you look at the Word you see that God is indeed nurturing, tender, and caring. Psalm 91 and Psalm 22:9 & 10 reveal the picture of a God who cares and raises us up. I am learning to accept the nurturing and tenderness of my God that is healing a place in my heart that was wounded. As I ministered to a man who had been deeply hurt by both of his parents and out of his wounds had sought women for comfort and being wanted, I began to see the nurturing heart of God. The man was shocked to realize that God could be this for him, he realized he had hurt many people by seeking to fill this need his own way. Especially for men who are taught by our society to be tough, strong, and aloof it is revealing to see that we need the nurture, tenderness, and love that comes from the feminine qualities of God. I realized in my own life that what caused difficulty in my marriage was my inability to receive nurturing, thus to be tender and loving to my wife the way God wants. I have realized you cannot give what you have not received, so if you did not receive something growing up then receiving it from God allows you to be a conduit of His love. Why do counselors talk about the past? Because our identity has been formed through our experiences and to take on our new identity in Christ we must release the old to walk in the new (Ephesians 4:22-25). I also see in my own life that I am not good at nurturing myself (receiving it from the Lord), I tend to be driven too much by fears, demands, or others expectations. I am learning how to allow God to nurture and love me with His tenderness. I pray that God would reveal this dimension of His love to you.

In His Love,
Bret