Do you know how it is to know something for a long time and then suddenly realize it? That's how I feel about God's femininity. It's always been there. I've always known that women are made just as much in the image of God as men are. I've seen those same three "proof texts" for God's femininity many times. But, it suddenly hit me when I was reading and reflecting on Captivating that God is as feminine as He is masculine and that femininity reflects who God is as well, as completely as masculinity. Neither, of course, is complete by itself, but femininity is just as good at revealing God's character, personality, way with the world as masculinity.

So much of the Bible's imagery is masculine (with several important exceptions), it's easy to forget that He is also feminine. And not just "also" but "as much." His way of interacting with the world is as feminine as it is masculine. One example the authors of Captivating point out is His jealousy. I was trying to explain my thoughts on this to A, but words fell short. I hope I can find the words for my thoughts now. It seems to me that men and women feel jealousy differently. Men's jealousy seems to want to possess a woman. He is proud that he attracted this particular woman and he wants others to know that she belongs to him. It's a protective jealousy. A woman's jealousy is like a counterpart to this: she wants to draw him in, to capture him, to captivate him, to make him want to have her to the exclusion of all others. Perhaps it's that he wants to have her for himself and she wants to be the only one he wants.

There is the saying, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." Why is that true of women and not men? It's because we feel jealousy differently. I think God's jealousy is at least as feminine as it is masculine. Can you see this? Can you see how much He wants to be the only One we want? Can you see how He wants us to be captivated, drawn into Him, so completely mesmerized by all He is, by Who He is that we cannot even consider turning somewhere else?

Another point the authors make is that women not only desire to draw others in by the sheer force of who they are, but they also want to be drawn out. They want others to discover them. To plumb their depths. To seek out the treasures they know are in there. I know in talking with A or my good girlfriends, I often stumble upon nuggets of truth or beauty that are in there, have been in there, but needed drawing out. I may have known there was something there, or not, but it took the interaction with another person for it to come out to the forefront. Isn't God like that? Doesn't He invite us to seek Him, to know Him? Isn't He sometimes a little difficult to know because He's complex and because you sometimes have to dig to get to the good stuff?

As I begin to consider God's feminine side, I see that He is as much Mother (all the feminine images in the Bible point to this, so it's a sort of safe place to start) as He is Father. This doesn't mean I'm going to start calling Him Mother or Goddess in my prayer life, but it does open a door to a new way of relating to Him. His motherly tenderness is not secondary to His fatherly wisdom. His motherly protection ("mama bear") is not secondary to His fatherly protection.

And, because of that equality of the feminine with the masculine within Him, I can be confident in who He has made me to be as a woman. I bear exactly as much of God's image as any man--and I bear it not only in "spiritual" ways like my love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and self-control, but even in my feminine beauty, complexity, desires, ways of being. Realizing that He not only approves of femininity, but is feminine, I am free to embrace, experience and express my own femininity.