Daily Manna · Day 285 · October 12
Graven on His Palms
“Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.”
A mother finally gets her baby to sleep sometime after midnight. Then she falls asleep herself in the chair beside the crib, still sitting up, with one hand through the bars.
That is the picture God reaches for, and then He does something with it that should stop you. He asks, "Can a woman forget her sucking child?" We expect the answer to be no. God gives a different answer: "yea, they may forget." He will not use a picture He cannot fully stand behind, so He admits the exception. Some mothers do forget, and for some people that sentence is a wound and no comfort at all. Then He says: "yet will I not forget thee."
Zion, the city of Jerusalem, had spoken first: "But Zion said, The LORD hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me." So God's words are an answer to a complaint, and that is why He gives proof with them: "Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands." "Graven" means cut in, the way a stonemason carves a name into stone so that it will last, because ink does not last long enough. Then comes the detail that shows what the carving is: "thy walls are continually before me." God is holding the plan of a ruined city in His hands. He is looking at what she will be while she is still rubble.
So if you have been telling yourself that God has forgotten you, may that sentence be answered, not agreed with. May you know that you are held by Someone whose memory does not depend on His mood. And may you trust that He is already looking at what He will rebuild in you, even while you still feel like rubble.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 285 is Continue in Prayer (Colossians 4:2).