by Pastor Daniel

Isaiah 49:15-16
“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?  Though she may forget, I will not forget you!   See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.”

We are all very familiar with these verses that speak of God’s love for us.  That love is equated to a mother’s love.

Some of us are mothers.  We understand these words so well.  The month of May honors mothers.  This is one time in a year that suddenly the word mother is found everywhere.  From your online shopping notices, to reminders in your emails and in your apps on the phone, we will surely not forget this day.

However, how does remembering it impact us today.  I know for one, we will suddenly recall the love of our mothers for most of us.  How they had made sacrifices to our benefits that we have become what we are today.

Then the church today will recall the love of God as a mother would love her child.  That is how much God loves us.

As we think of mothers this month, let us think of the love of God displayed in our lives as well.

For mothers - we appreciate the love you have shown.  For children - we thank God for the mothers in our lives that have impacted us in different ways.

“Can a mother forget her child?”
It is a rhetorical question, assuming the answer to be negative.  A mother in her right frame of mind could never forget her child.  Mothers will always be mothers, even when the child is old.  They don’t forget.

However, due to our human circumstances, there is still a possibility of “forgetfulness”.  Age and illness are factors by which even mothers could forget their own child.

When one suffers from dementia or any mental ailment, one could forget not just her child but also anyone whom she has loved before.
With the sin of this world, we have what we called, “unwanted” children, when the child is given up for adoption for various reason.  They have been “forgotten”.

That is the limit to human love.

“Though she may forget, I will not forget you.”
As from the perspective of God, we hear a God who does not forget His children.  Being human, there is a possibility that even our mothers can forget.  

Immediately, the above question is not longer rhetorical.  There is a possibility and then God said that even if that should happen, God will not forget His children.

This is the aspiration of the highest love - God’s kind of love - His love for us.  While we celebrate mother’s day, it is the celebration of a greater love found in our God whose love is supreme and eternal

“See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands”
We are even in the mind of God.  That is the expression as found in the prophesy of Isaiah.  God has engraved (unremovable) us in the palm of his hands (ever close to Him).

Can there be any greater love and comfort?  That is our God.  May God’s love envelop you in all that you do and become.  More and more like Jesus, greater in our growth of love and service.