When I was a first-year in college, I heard a pastor use the words “Mother God” for the first time. I was surprised. As a child growing up in the United Methodist Church, but also exposed to indigenous spiritualities through family friends,I had heard of “Mother Earth,” but I had never heard “Mother God” before. My brain quickly jumped into rationalizing mode: ok, that’s fine to call God “Mother” because we call God “Father,” and there is that stuff about God as a “mother hen” and everything, and humans don’t even understand God so there’s things we don’t know about God and God probably doesn’t even have a gender as humans understand it, right? So whatever this is fine, ok, I can use this language too---Mother God. Mother God. Mother God.

That simple exposure to calling God something other than “Father” had huge implications for me. I learned about reasons why someone wouldn’t be comfortable praying to “Father God,” from the thousands of years of patriarchal control of Christian narrative to experiences of sexualized violence against girls and women. I read the Bible more thoroughly and critically, watching hungrily for any hints of a feminine Divine. I dove into learning about feminist ecotheology in the spring of my first year, incredulous that there were decades of women writing about an embodied, cosmic, matriarchal, creative Divine presence. I read Sallie McFague’s Models of God and was struck with her use of Mother, Lover and Friend as a way of understanding the Trinity. 

Why hadn’t I learned about God as feminine earlier? Wasn’t I supposed to be made in God’s image, too? 

Then, about a year ago, my friend, Teresa, texted me in excitement with an idea she had for a children’s book. She was bubbling with creativity, and her joy was infectious! The team at Beaming Books recognized her passion and, wisely for them, acquired this book.

“You know God the Father, but God is your Mother too.”

This is how Mother God, the highly-anticipated premiere children’s book by Rev. Teresa Kim Pecinovsky begins. That’s almost enough for a whole book by itself, that one profound statement. But Rev. Pecinovsky is only getting started. In this gorgeous book, Biblical images of feminine understandings of God come to life with gentle rhymes and vibrant illustrations by Khoa Le. God is a leopard guarding her cubs, a mother helping her child walk, a baker feeding her neighborhood, and the One Who Sees, offering comfort in times of deep pain. All of the images are chosen from the pages of the Bible--yes, the mother hen is there, too! 

Teresa is an ordained Disciples of Christ minister and a hospital chaplain in Houston, Texas. Born in South Korea, she was raised in Iowa and, after a while, got her Masters of Divinity at Vanderbilt Divinity School, where we met and became friends. Teresa is a prophetic minister and a loving friend. Her passion for justice for all people ignites others around her to work to co-create with God a beloved, beautiful kin-dom. This book is another flame, that will encourage children (and their adults!) to do their own wondering about theology, apart from what they have been taught and told. 

And the illustrations are theology lessons in themselves. From the fierce bear watching over her babies positioned against a night sky to the intentional inclusion of a blind baker to the nursing mother surrounded by books, including one that says “postpartum depression,” Khoa Le’s artwork is simply stunning. The stars seem to sparkle off the page (well, the computer screen, because the book isn’t published yet!) and I swear I can hear the baby giggling on the page where the mother is removing baby’s tiny socks with joy. These illustrations are some of my favorites that I’ve ever seen in a children’s book, with designs that remind me of my grandma’s painted china and also of the glory of the cosmos. 

Mother God is available for pre-order now--and I highly recommend you pre-order, for several reasons! Dana Staves, in this article on BookRiot, writes, “Debut authors especially need a solid showing in book preorders to prove to the publisher that they have a place in the market. And an author’s best first shot at landing on one of the big bestseller lists is in that first week of sales, a number that’s bolstered by preorders.” 

The book will be published March 8, 2022, and you want to get it as soon as possible. So go ahead and pre-order now, for yourself, for your children or grandchildren, for your church library and as a gift for your pastor. I can’t wait to share it with my best friend’s sons, because I know they will just love it! 

Trust me, you will want this book for any children in your life, because getting to know the feminine and maternal aspects of God widens our understanding of being made in the imago Dei, the image of God. Children will see themselves in this book, just as Teresa’s own daughter did when looking at some of the draft illustrations! As people who care for children, we should equip them to broaden their theological education beyond traditional, patriarchal, white, male God. This book is one important, beautiful, expansive, love-filled step in that direction. 

Follow @tkpcreates on Instagram, Twitter and visit tkpcreates.com to keep up with what Teresa is doing next! Also, check out Teresa’s episode on the Theosophia podcast with our Vanderbilt Divinity School colleague, Sarah Elizabeth Smith.  

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