There is an essence of a Woman —God-ordained actually. Even if you don’t believe in God, there is an unmistakable quality of a woman that goes far beyond body parts and hormones.
A woman is a life-giver. Hear me. Not just a baby maker. But a Life-Giver.
For decades, I have been on a deep dive into the heavenly Who of a woman. The world’s Who of a woman reduces us to breasts and bottoms. And frankly, the church’s answer of Who relegates us to the high (and only allowed) calling of motherhood. Both left cavernous gaps in my heart.
Don’t get me wrong. I am undone by my children. Still love-wrecked by them today, though they are grown and flown. I prayed desperately to have them and have been completely overhauled as a human by being a parent. Nothing brings me to my knees faster than the threat of danger or harm to my babies. Likewise, when they laugh and soar, whether they are 20 months or 20 years, my heart sings a song that is worthy of angels.
And yet. My own children gave me clues to this bigger Who of a woman. But they did not satisfy the God-sized holes and hunger in my soul.
As I sought the Lord and tried to make sense of the tension, God began to reveal some beautiful secrets of His feminine masterpiece.
It starts with the names. In Genesis alone, we see the names: female, help meet, woman, and mother. Goodness, we could have fun unpacking all of these. But for today, let’s look at Mother.
In ancient Hebrew, the letters are pictures. So each word is a collection of images that creates vast meaning. The two letters/pictures depicting the word “mother” is an ox and water. Ox signifies strength and water signifies life. Translated mother means strong water.
Scholars say the expression strong water is attributed to the process of boiling the skin of an animal down until it makes a glue that is used for making tents. Lovely, yes? But hold on. Like its image, it is rife with meaning.
A woman is uniquely equipped to connect people, hold relationships together, create strong emotional and spiritual attachments so that the family, tribe, or camp can weather the seasons of life. A woman is the glue of her home. Whether single or married, with child or without, she has been heavenly wired to carry this life-building and life-sustaining essence into her world.
She carries this Holy Glue that brings hearts together, cements ideas or dreams, and provides foundational strength in various expressions.
When Adam named Eve, which happened after the fall, and before children, he called out the original Who that God created. Not just for the first woman, but for all of us, since she would be named the mother of all the living.
We, women, are her daughters, all women are called Strong Water. We carry the life-giving glue of Heaven.
Thank you, Lord, for revealing your beautiful heart through us.