Love Like a Mother

go buy this amazing book by elizabeth berget!

I just attended my first-ever Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin University, and, among myriad delights, I got to meet Elizabeth Berget. We were already Internet friends (weʼre in the same writing support group and have collaborated on Instagram reels), but this was our first meeting in real life. Elizabeth immediately made me feel welcomed and included when she pulled me into a hug. Over the course of the festival, she was so warm every time our paths crossed, encouraging me to sit with her and introducing me to other people. It was obvious right away that Elizabeth is a very good friend—and a very good mom.

Mothering energy comes alongside, sees you, and interacts with gentleness and empathy. Elizabeth exudes mothering energy, and she also sees it in the Divine. Her debut book, Love Like a Mother: How the Sacred Work of Motherhood Reveals the Maternal Heart of God, releases on May 5th, and friends, you do not want to sleep on this one.

Elizabethʼs voice comes through beautifully in her writing, and it was clear to me before I finished the bookʼs introduction that sheʼs exactly the kind of mother I want to hear from. Miss me with Christian mothering books that give me more work to do, or pretend like itʼs all great, or spiritually condescend with the message that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Youʼll get none of that from Elizabeth.

What you will get is talk about how the wound in Christʼs side was depicted as a vulva in medevil art (here for it). What you will get is Elizabethʼs birth stories that include an amniotic fluid spill and getting stuck in a hospital elevator during active labor and the manual removal of her placenta (ouch + deep bow). What you will get is her charming sense of humor, like her saying the Apostle Paul used newborn language just shy of employing the Apgar scoring system (theology and birth lingo combined? Thatʼs my jam, people). What you will get is her amazing solidarity with the task of raising humans, aka "bottomless pits of need" (the 758th reading of The Hungry Caterpillar, trying to get gloves on a toddler, the calamity of peeling a banana that a child did not want peeled, and never ever EVER getting to drink a cup of coffee in one sitting). What you will get is God pregnant, God giving birth, God nursing, God losing a child, God as Shekhinah (divine presence), God juggling the mental load, and God awake with you at 3 a.m.

And isnʼt that exactly how we long to see God? As Elizabeth points out, it doesnʼt just say something about women that we are created in the Divineʼs image, it says something about God.

"…as mothers, we intimately know the cross-born love of God in our bodies with each and every baby we labor into being. We embody the creative powers of Christ in our bones and in our ligaments and in the tearing of our tissue because Jesus, on the cross, loved us like a mother."

For those who are curious but find this theology a little out of their comfort zone, know that every single one of the bookʼs maternal metaphors is biblical. Elizabeth simultaneously paints a stunning picture of a maternal God and uses masculine pronouns for God. Her chapters are littered with Scripture references. Readers with conservative theology will find the book accessible and respectful. And progressive readers will nod along vigorously.

And for my audience specifically, youʼll love Chapter 6: Shelter and Shekhinah—itʼs all about a different kind of power. Itʼs power with, not power over. Itʼs giving midwifery vibes:

"The protection (my mother) offered me was the space and time to feel the full weight of my sadness, to cry and lament, and to be held. What she provided for me in my darkest valleys was her presence, her comfort, and sometimes her own shared tears. It was a protection born out of compassion and empathy rather than muscles and armor. And it was a protection that safeguarded the very core of who I was, because I knew that even within grief and rage, abandonment and heartbreak, despair and dejection, I was loved, and that I wasnʼt alone. When we reduce protection to only a male-driven warrior version of rescue and deliverance, we miss out on the maternal face of God in exile; we miss out on the preservation of our humanity that God-with-us, ever-present divine love, provides."

So what are you waiting for? Go buy her book! Ideally, review it on Amazon, but buy it from an independent bookstore (they will order it for you if they donʼt already have it!). If you cannot buy at this time, please ask your local library to purchase it (give them this number: 978-1587436819).

As I write this an invisible hand is squeezing my uterus tight on Day 1 of period. Iʼve gotta get my daughter to soccer practice in thirty minutes, pick up salmon on the way home, put laundry away, call the doctor, and probably referee a sibling fight. Elizabeth understands this intimately, and, more importantly, so does God our Mother.