My roommate Lauren and I were talking the other night about how we both theoretically know that God is greater than any gender confinement but how it still sounds strange to refer to God as "she." Through the course of our conversation we decided we would try to refer to God as she for a week and see what it sounded and felt like and if our understanding of God's character expanded through that process.
So, the other night Lauren introduced me to a great song called "How He Loves" by John Mark McMillian. We sang it together replacing "he" with "she" and I was surprised by how I was able to engage with the idea of God in a new and refreshing way.
I especially love the imagery in the first two verses below (edited from the original for the sake of our experiment.) Enjoy.
She is jealous for me,
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of her wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden,
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realise just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.
She loves us,
O how She loves us,
O how She loves us,
O how She loves.
We are Her portion and She is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in Her eyes,
If grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.
So Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss,
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets,
When I think about, the way…
She loves us,
O how She loves us,
O how She loves us,
O how She loves.
