Volume 18, Issue 2, June 2005

Our understandings of God change and grow with us as we move through life. This study of a group of New Zealand Catholic women finds that childhood God images were shaped more by who our parents were to us than the catechism we memorised. By middle adulthood our images of God reflect not only some lasting childhood images but the experiences of friendship, role modelling, groups we belong to, study, parenting, solitude, nature and the pain of suffering. Our adulthood God images, especially in terms of gender and power, are also linked with suffering, and how we envision church.