Divine Timing
What if everything is Divine timing? Not the terrible, very bad things but the peripheral good in the midst of it all? Thoughts on Earth Day, Passover & Mother God.
I found her, I almost shout
I found God the Mother!
A woman, my mentor
responds
Oh darling, God is never Mother
My world turns sideways
I've been looking
for Mother
all my days
I hang up the phone
build a new life
I wrote a note to my instructor Monday morning to let her know I would not be in class next week. “My son is being inducted into the national honor society,” I say, “if I believe in nothing else in motherhood, I believe in Divine timing.”
Do you believe in Divine timing?
I believe it’s Divine timing that Passover met Earth Day yesterday. A reminder of how my connection with the collective is so much more expansive than what I’ve seen at my personal intersection of disability, pain and motherhood. It reaches toward my Jewish ancestors and earth siblings. Goes beyond even this to all earth siblings.
I believe it’s Divine timing that even in my hardest moments (especially in motherhood), good has shown up.
I believe that the moment that I realized that God could be my mother and my mentor shouted “hard stop!” was absolutely Divine timing, as my exit from Evangelicalism had long been on the horizon. I just needed someone to confirm what I already knew - that the way I love is/was not welcome.
I can see God in everything, everyone.
I told my current mentor this and wrote about it earlier this year. How even when I cannot feel God, I know that God is there. As much in the “sinner” as the mystic and the saint. In my backyard turtle and also, in the puddle on my bathroom tile after my child has wandered around drenched & naked after bathing once more. I’ve seen God in the warmth of a blanket and in the kindness of strangers. Especially in the hospital.
I was supposed to have a doctors appointment to address some ongoing digestive issues (on non-digesting issues) yesterday morn’ that was canceled. Which then, freed me up to write this.
More Divine timing? Yes, for me more God in everything. (As writing continues to be so very therapeutic for me.)
All this to say - there is nothing wrong with your version of good and God, beloved. I feel like I’ve had this conversation a lot. Blessed humans confused by the way their heart melts differently at the sound of Amma, Abba, Papa, Creator, Mother, good, God and/or Universe in their prayer life. In countless indigenous stories, God is Mother Earth and Father Sky.
All this to say - there also is nothing wrong with the way you engage with good and/or God. If prayer doesn’t speak to you, perhaps meditation does or gardening (I’m a fan). If you don’t believe in Divine timing (which I personally cannot relate to in respect to tragedy), then maybe you believe God still shows up even when the timing of awful things is simply terrible.
All this to say - there is nothing wrong with you if your spiritual life has been shattered, too. If your journey with the Divine hasn’t felt good. If you’ve spent so much time in hardship that to imagine anything different feels impossible right now. I wrote about that yesterday; how finding myself has come through losing myself (though I don’t wish the losing part upon any of you).
I’ll end here -
There is a lot happening in the world that has disrupted my sense of ease these last few months (okay, years). And, Diving timing is what I’m leaning on most right now. That somehow, the synchronicities that have shown up in and after the worst of the storms (I won’t say the storms have ended… yet), are what keep me afloat most days. And, when I cannot see them, it’s so terribly dark. Which makes me want to search for them more… and so, I do.
What about you?
I love you and I see you, soul friend.
New here? Dear Soul Tender is a safe, sacred space where you can find feminist conversations and contemplations for those who mother, give (care) and grieve. Companioning you through complicated spaces including pain, identity, trauma, and loss, my promise here is to remind you of how to love well: yourself, your kids, your neighbor, and the whole wide world.
Once again, your beautiful words speak to me.... while I did not grow up in an Evangelical setting (rather, Catholic and Secular Jewish), I married into a family with such leanings, and I tend to keep my full spiritual self/beliefs under wraps so as not to get into a debate that I feel I cannot defend. I've seen the pain of those stuck in a rigid interpretation of God and the Bible who left my Presbyterian church over the decision to publicly affirm support for the LGBTQ community. But I cannot limit God nor God's love, nor do I ever presume to know the full will and mind of God to proclaim absolutes other than God is love. As for timing... I agree that it's hard to accept that the terrible things that crush us are God's timing, but I do believe that God uses those things to shape us and transform us, and to turn them into blessings of a sort (sometimes). Like- our postpartum experiences sucked, but through our survival and growth beyond them, we're able to support other mothering people in their dark times. Thanks again for another inspiring and thought-provoking post, Jennifer! Namaste!