Indelible Marks

Have you ever felt abandoned? Abandoned by your family. Abandoned by your friends. Abandoned by the world. Maybe even abandoned by El Shaddai, Almighty God himself. Left without protection, care, or support. No longer thought of. You wonder if anyone knows or cares that you exist. That feeling of isolation, aloneness, is not a place any of us ever want to be. But, if you are like me, you have felt that isolation, that aloneness, at some point in your life. Maybe you feel it right now.

While it is true that people do at times abandon us, and we to them, it is also true that God will never abandon those who are His. In a world that seems to look for reasons to kick people to the curb, a comforting promise is that God never kicks us to the curb. The writer of Hebrews says this, referring back to Deuteronomy 31:1-6 – ^“Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he (God) has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you’” (13:5).

Jesus Himself made this promise when He commissioned his eleven remaining disciples to continue the work He began – “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20b).”

You might be saying, those verses sound comforting, but right now, as I sit here all alone, is God really close to me? Let me share a story from the Old Testament. A time when the Israelites likely wondered if God had forgotten about them.

Jerusalem had been destroyed and most of its inhabitants were in Babylonian captivity. If God was truly with them, they must have said, then this would not have happened. They, often like us today, equate pain and suffering with God seemingly abandoning them. In the story, found in Isaiah 49, we find this cry – “But Zion said, ‘The LORD has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me” (v.14). You ask, who is Zion? Zion is a placename in the Hebrew Bible, often a synonym for Jerusalem, the city of God, as well as the land of Israel in its entirety. So, here we see the people were filing an objection against all of the promises that Yahweh had made with them. They allowed their current circumstances to cloud what they knew to be true. Have you ever been in that situation?

God countered their objection by asserting that He is as near to them as a mother is to her nursing baby. Here is what God said to them – “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you” (v.15). To further the point, this – “Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me” (v.16).

This engraving alludes to an ancient custom of tattooing one’s hand with impressions of the Temple, as a way to remember the Temple of God simply by looking at the indigo ink tattooed in their palms. Centuries later, Jesus engraved us in His palms as the nails were hammered through His hands on the cross.

So, the next time we are tempted to wonder if God has abandoned us, we only need to look at our palms and envision the indelible marks on His hands for us.   

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