this is how i personally imagined eru ilúvatar!

why woman?
short version: translation misunderstandings.

long version: i have read silmarillion only in finnish. finnish lacks gendered pronouns completely. and “iluvatar” reads as feminine name in finnish because -tar suffix is often used to create feminine versions of titles in finnish and many finnish goddeses have -tar suffix in their names.
so.. you can probably do the math. for long i thought that iluvatar was essentially a massive divine mom. you have no idea how devasted i was when i opened iluvatar’s wiki page to check something and i was greeted with picture of beardy man.
i still refuse to acknowledge this “truth” and i continue thinking her as massive divine mom and i still continue referring her with she pronouns and feminine words.