“I am neither male nor female, even though both genders are derived from my nature. If I choose to appear to you as a man or a woman, its because I love you.” (The Shack, William Paul Young)
In 2018 I read The Shack by William Paul Young. It took me 3 tries to get past the first two chapters and into the book. I was in a period of severe depression after having a D&C at 13 weeks pregnant after finding no heartbeat for Anagen’s and my first child after we got married. I started a new job at the beginning of May that year and found out I was pregnant 4 weeks later. It was a shock that we encountered with joy and excitement. At the ultrasound appointment the technician’s demeanor changed from positive to quiet and reserved. I knew in that moment that something was not as it should have been. Later when my physician told us that there was no heartbeat, I was overwhelmed by the sadness that my womb was a barren wasteland. Filled with death.
We decided that it would be best if I miscarried naturally, if possible, and pursue a D&C if that did not occur. I spent the next couple of weeks experiencing the severe symptoms of pregnancy, all while navigating a new job and the knowledge that I was not carrying the potential for life. I remember one specific evening experiencing horrific nausea. Anagen and I got home from work around 5:30 that night and he went to pick us up dinner from a local restaurant as we were exhausted from a long day and neither of us were feeling up to cooking. The nausea peaked while he was gone and I spent the next 30 minutes hugging the toilet and losing what felt like all of my guts.
When he got home he found me sobbing on the bathroom floor. It was cruel that I would experience all of the symptoms of pregnancy and never get to hold a child at the end.
My doctor scheduled a D&C for the following week as my body refused to acknowledge that it had miscarried. On Friday, the morning of the procedure, I went to work, to get things squared away in my office, and then Anagen drove me to the hospital. I woke up in the recovery room, and cried what seemed like a river of tears. The nurses brought me tissues and one held my hand while the other stroked my hair. They understood the depth of my feelings.
I spent the weekend navigating the weight of emotions and returned to work the following Monday.
Later that Summer several friends talked about the book The Shack and I gave it a try. The book begins with the kidnapping and murder of the main character’s child. I put it down immediately. I couldn’t handle reading about the loss of a child.
Fall 2018, I tried again. In what I can only describe as a prodding by the Spirit, I picked the book back up. I finished the book that day.
I won’t go into detail about the book, but rather choose to focus on the part of the story that was most impactful in my journey. At a point in the plot, the father (main character) is going back to the shack where his child was murdered. Before he can reach the shack, he is led by a stranger to another house nearby. At this house he encounters 3 individuals who are representations of the three persons of the Christian God. In a shocking twist (spoiler alert) the character of God the Father presents themselves as an African American woman. She insists that the main character call her “Papa”, the same nickname that his daughter had for God. Jesus (Son) presents themselves as a Middle Eastern Man, and the Holy Spirit presents themselves as an Asian Woman. Within the story, as the main character wrestles with the personhood of God presented as a woman, the author writes a line that caused me to ponder further. “I am neither male nor female, even though both genders are derived from my nature. If I choose to appear to you as a man or a woman, its because I love you.”
The female representation of God was one who could empathize with the main character and sit in the hard place of grief, anger, and loss. She pours out her love for the main character through long talks in her kitchen, preparing loving meals for him. She can connect with him in a human way, one with a motherly sense of love.
In the evangelical church the personhood of God is exclusively referred to as male. The God of the Old Testament is identified as “God the Father”, Jesus (in the New Testament) as God the Son, and throughout the scriptures the Holy Spirit is a singular entity that is not generally ascribed gender. The personification of God as male in pronoun and appearance is central in building the idea that male dominance is God’s “biblical” plan for “His” chosen peoples. As a child and into my teenage years I pictured “God the Father” as an angry, old, white man on a throne with a long white beard. I pictured Jesus as male. When I thought of the Holy Spirit, it was also somehow male.
After reading The Shack I explored scripture and asked more questions about who God is, and how They show up within the word. The first time God is named in scripture, God is named by Hagar: El Roi: The God who sees. Throughout scripture the Spirit of God is present as the feminine Hebrew verb Ruach. El Shaddai, often referred to as “God Almighty” is often interpreted as “The Many Breasted One”. God’s glory within the temple is “Shekinah Glory”- a female word within Hebrew. The name that God gives themselves in Exodus when Moses asks who they are is Yahweh, or “I am that I am.” The roots of Yah and weh being a combination of both masculine and feminine words in Hebrew. When Proverbs explores Holy Wisdom as a character, it is female.
But the culmination for me in changing my perspective about the personhood of God came when I looked simply at Genesis and the creation of human kind.
“Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.” So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:26-27 NLT). Male and Female are created in the image of God. God’s divine nature is not bound by maleness, but rather both male and female are created to represent its fullness.
Jesus uses the metaphor of a mother hen gathering her chicks under her wing, in Matthew, to describe God’s care for creation. God comforts Israel as a mother does her child in Isaiah. Deuteronomy paints God as one who gave birth to Israel. Isaiah compares the silence of God toward the Israelites in captivity to a woman’s silence in labor.
Please do not hear what I am not saying. I am not say “God is a woman!” (Sorry pop culture songs!) What I am saying, and believe, is that God transcends gender. We as humans are limited in the words we can use to describe the infinitely complex world around us, and even our infinite God. However, continually representing God as male, as the Evangelical church does, is limiting to understanding who God is. As a woman who has experienced the silence in birth, and the pains of bringing forth life, I can relate to the prophet’s description of God. I see who I am in the feminine of God- a being with an eternal soul.
I can stand before a God who sees me and understands me, because I reflect back to them a part of who they are. This has been an uncomfortable exploration because it meant unpacking who I was told God is, and finding out who God is. El Roi gives me sight to see God as they are, because I am also seen.
Author’s note:
The first portion of this was written in silence. As I prepared to write about loss, I could not find music that helped with the flow of my thoughts. So, I wrote in silence, and the words (and tears) poured onto the page.
I wrote the second portion while listening to The Head and the Heart by The Head and the Heart (2010).