The Lost Half of God and the Hope It Brings
Written by: Hannah Gravrand
I grew up believing that God was a masculine figure. We prayed to Heavenly Father, recognizing Him as a parent to us. I was also taught that God created me in His image. But as a girl, this left me with an unspoken question. I dreamed of one day becoming a mother, not a father. So, like many little girls before me, I felt a quiet sense of lacking as I searched for spiritual nurturing. If God was a man, how was I supposed to learn what it meant to be a woman?
Of course, I didn’t have a deep theological crisis as a child. Instead, it was more of a subtle dissonance—a quiet sense of loss or detachment that I couldn’t quite name. The struggle was real, even if I didn’t have the words for it yet.
It was Mother Moon who first introduced me to the concept of God as a Heavenly Parent, not just a Heavenly Father. In a passage from her memoir, Mother of Peace, where she speaks directly to God, she writes:
“You want us to know You as our Heavenly Parent, the One who is the love of Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother… the fallen world lost your ideal of man-woman oneness, and worshiped an incomplete image of the Heavenly Father rather than welcoming and attending Heavenly Parent. Men took the dominant position and shaped Western Civilization through the Hellenic and Hebraic traditions. Neither men nor women understood the feminine heart of Heavenly Mother and the perfect eternal love of Heavenly Parent.”
These words resonated deeply with me, affirming an inner intuition I had always carried as a girl and woman.
But Mother Moon has also spoken about the unique and distinct roles of men and women. When reflecting on our understanding of God's essence, she states:
“The purpose of each religion should be to explain the Creator, and to know the Creator's original essence… It is the mother rather than the father that gives birth - 0.01 percent the father and 99.99 percent the mother. Is that right?”
Any woman who has experienced the journey of growing, birthing, and raising a child knows that bringing life into the world is far from a small task—it is profound, demanding, and nearly impossible to fully comprehend until lived. In the earliest stages of a child’s existence, the contributions of the mother and father are not equal in physical substance. A quick Google search reveals that a human ovum is anywhere from 10,000 to 10 million times larger than a sperm. While both the egg and sperm are equally valuable—each carrying essential genetic information that determines the uniqueness of a child—their physical contributions are vastly different.
And this imbalance continues beyond conception. Once fertilized, the mother’s body provides the sustenance needed to grow the child from a microscopic speck to a fully formed baby. If the baby exclusively breastfeeds, the mother's milk continues to be the sole source of nourishment, fueling growth and development. By the time the child reaches six months old, nearly all the physical substance of their body has come from their mother, while the father’s biological contribution remains minuscule in comparison. This is not to diminish the role of fathers but rather to highlight the immense and irreplaceable contribution of mothers.
If God created humanity as a reflection of the divine essence, what does this say about God's nature? Could the substance we inherit from Heavenly Mother be just as disproportionately impactful? Many have had profound, life-altering experiences communing with Heavenly Father. If this is so, what might be possible if we also sought connection with Heavenly Mother? The very thought is electrifying—if we have only tapped into a portion of God’s essence, then embracing Her feminine side could hold the key to a more complete, transformative, and healing understanding of the Divine. Imagine the possibilities. Not only will young girls and women have clarity about their feminine nature, but both men and women will have access to a healing power so much greater than any of us can imagine. The solutions to many of our world's problems might just lie therein.