Sometimes God is like a mother bear

My image of mothering is more layered than ever these days. It’s the awe of witnessing my daughter’s consistent love in action for her twins. It’s the joy of seeing my own mom delight in her great-grandchildren and they her. It’s the gratitude I have in remembering sweet (and not-so-sweet) moments parenting Torey over the years. It’s enjoying and giving thanks for our hard-won friendship today.  

It’s the holy honor of grandmothering two incredible humans. I get to hear my grandkids’ giggles of sheer happiness often. I love how they splash at bath time. How they watch the wind move through the trees as they eat avocado toast and tomatoes. How they are exploring their world and noticing how much goodness there is to savor in it.

And. There is so much brokenness. So many are lonely and hurting. My heart aches at the ongoing division and steady stream of gun violence. We just passed the first anniversary of the Uvalde shooting. And people with access to guns and other weapons are taking out their fear and anger and sadness at all that is wrong in the world on innocent others. Kate Bowler is right: life is so beautiful AND life is so hard.

In my state last month, Francisco Oropesa shot and killed five of his neighbors, one of whom was only 9 years old, when they asked him to stop shooting his gun off in his backyard because a baby was trying to sleep. Authorities said the two women died while using their bodies to shield the baby and a 2-year-old daughter. They gave their lives to protect those children. 

A week later, a man with ties to white supremacist and Nazi groups killed people shopping at an outlet mall in a Dallas suburb. I remember visiting it not long after it was built near Kyle’s grandparents’ home years ago. One child survived because his mom covered his body with her own. She gave her life to save his.

My mind reels. I’m incensed at political leaders who offer thoughts and prayers and little else. As if mental health crises and access to assault rifles couldn’t both be aspects of the problem to be addressed. We need more than thoughts and prayers. As Taylor S. Schumann, a survivor of a 2013 shooting at her university writes, many are realizing “we don’t have to live this way, but, in order to do that, we have to choose not to turn away… There are absolutely things that we can do, but we have to decide it’s a problem worth fixing if we have a fighting chance at all.” Amen, Taylor! (Read more here).

And if I’m honest, I’m mad God didn’t intervene. I know it has something to do with free will. But it’s grandparents and parents and uncles and cousins and little children whose lives are being taken. Like the disciples during the storm as Jesus slept, I want to ask God if he cares that people’s lives are in peril.

I’ve long loved God as father, a holy parent who is dependable and loving and true, who would never hurt me or leave me. I’ve known Jesus as faithful friend, showing me the way of life and freedom and grace. I’ve known him as Emmanuel (‘God with us’). I took great comfort in the idea of Emmanuel when Torey was young. When I worried about her safety (physical, emotional, and spiritual) at daycare or school, I’d pray fervently that God would be with her. I’d breathe a sigh of relief remembering that her Maker loves her infinitely more than I do. I still love praying to a God who would come near and take on our frail humanity.

But those two unrelated shootings are among the reminders that we also need the God who is like a nursing mother (Deuteronomy 32:11-14, Isaiah 49:15). The kind of God who sustains us and offers the kind of profound connection a nursing mom has with her children. The kind of God for whom it is physically impossible to forget beloved children. We need a God who’s like a mother hen who covers us, defends us, and holds us close (Luke 13:34).

And in the face of violence and of hidden or minimized harm coming to light, we need God as a mother who fiercely protects us and rages at those who hurt or oppress her children. At first, I didn’t know what to think when I saw an illustration of God as being like a mother bear with teeth bared menacingly in a newly beloved children’s book. But these days, as I pray for my grandchild and the world they are inheriting, as I witness the harm in the name of protection or even in God’s name, I am asking God to be like a mother bear in our world, like Nahum describes.

I invite you to read these words with the faces of the vulnerable or hurting in your life in your mind’s eye. “A jealous and avenging God is the Lord, the Lord is avenging and wrathful; the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and rages against his enemies. The Lord is slow to anger but great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. He rebukes the sea and makes it dry, and he dries up all the rivers; Bashan and Carmel wither, and the bloom of Lebanon fades. The mountains quake before him, and the hills melt; the earth heaves before him, the world and all who live in it. Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the heat of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and by him the rocks are broken in pieces. The Lord is good, a stronghold in a day of trouble; he protects those who take refuge in him…” (Nahum 1:2-7).

God is full of lovingkindness and is as gentle as a nursing mother. And God is fierce and even hostile toward those who hurt his little ones, like a mother bear protecting her cubs. I posted about that here.

A mother bear with bared teeth roars at any who would harm her cubs who appear wide-eyed at the mouth of a cave. Find the children’s book here.

And here’s what I’m realizing anew: Since we’re made in God’s image, we’re invited to embody the fulness of God’s good nature, including God’s fierceness. I’ve usually found it easier to embrace God’s kindness and gentleness. It’s not that I never lose my temper as my family can attest! But partly because of my personality and partly because it is what society has expected, even demanded, from me, I have often resisted conflict, not wanting to appear harsh or angry.

I’m not suggesting that we embrace vigilantism or some misguided notion of redemptive violence. But being image bearers in the world does mean that we stand up for the least and the vulnerable and any other beloved soul fiercely when anything or anyone hurts or endangers them.

I wonder where are you being invited to show up fiercely (and welcome a fiercely loving Parent along with you)? Who needs you to show up with mother-bear energy? What is it like to honor that impulse as good?

Parenting God,
Love, comfort, and guide us
When we are uncertain
Or afraid.
Guard us and those we love,
Body
And soul. 

God who took on skin,
Help us to live
With your kindness,
Humility, and to
Speak and act
For freedom
As you did.

God who is
Full of lovingkindness,
And who is also
Fierce
Give us the courage
To live into your
Image within each of us.
Amen.