God is a Mother Too | Elizabeth Berget

In this episode of the Untidy Faith Podcast, I sit down with Elizabeth Berget, author of Love Like a Mother, for a conversation about what happens when we take maternal metaphors for God as seriously as paternal ones—and why the church’s exclusion of feminine language for God isn’t just theologically incomplete but leaves women spiritually homeless in motherhood.Topics Covered* What gets quietly excluded when “God the Father” is our only or primary image* How the Hebrew word for God’s compassion (rachum) in Exodus 34:6—God’s first self-description—is tied to the word for womb (rechem)* How motherhood becomes a spiritual desert when your brain changes more than any other point in life (including puberty) but nobody tells you to expect your faith to change, and churches assume laziness instead of recognizing you’re doing a lot* The disconnect between how motherhood is emphasized in church circles but under-resourced spiritually* What’s at stake if we keep handing people a God who can only be described in paternal termsTimestamps: 01:00 What We Describe and Exclude with “God the Father” 06:00 All God Language Is Metaphor (We Forgot That) 10:00 Why Motherhood Feels Like a Spiritual Desert 16:00 Rachum: God’s Maternal Compassion Lost in Translation 23:00 Embodied Verbs and the Incarnational God 29:00 What Spiritual Formation Actually Looks Like for Mothers 35:00 What’s at Stake When We Exclude Feminine Language 37:00 Finding the Book and Elizabeth’s Work This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kateboyd.substack.com/subscribe