Prayer to God Our Mother

As we learned on Sunday, in Hebrew the gender for the term Spirit (ruah) is feminine. Many times in the scriptures God is portrayed as a woman. Throughout church history, any number of theologians have portrayed God as a woman. So why would we not pray to God as ‘she’?

As you pray this prayer today, be attentive to what the Holy Spirit is doing in you? How is She speaking to you, comforting you, challenging you?

A Psalm
Janet Morley

God is my strong rock in whom I trust,

and all my confidence I rest in her.

Deep in my mother’s womb, she knew me;

before my limbs were formed, she yearned for me.

Each of my movements she remembers with compassion,

and while I was still unseen, she did imagine me.

Her strength brought me forth into the light;

it was she who delivered me.

Hers were the hands that held me safe;

she cherished me upon my mother’s breast.

When I stammer, she forms the words in my mouth,

and when I am silent, she has understood my thought.

If I shout and rage, she hears my plea and my uncertainty.

When I am afraid, she stays close to me,

and when I am full of terror, she does not hide her face.

If I struggle against her, she will contain me,

and when I resist her, she will match my strength.

But if I am complacent, she confronts me;

when I cling to falsehood, she undermines my pride;

for she is jealous for my integrity,

and her longing is for nothing less than truth.

To all who are weak she shows compassion,

and those who are downtrodden she causes to rise.

But she will confound the arrogant at the height of their power,

and the oppressor she will throw to the ground;

the strategies of the hard-hearted she will utterly confute.

God pities the fallen, and I will love her:

she challenges the mighty, and I desire her with my whole heart.

God is the rock in whom I put my trust,

and all my meaning is contained in her;

for without God there is no security,

and apart from her there is no place of safety.