God will never forget you

Isaiah 49:15 illustrates the greatness of God's love for us. While it is extremely rare for a human mother to abandon her newborn baby, we know that it is possible because it happens. But it is not possible for our Heavenly Father to forget or not love his children completely.

Isaiah 49:15
“Can a woman forget her breastfeeding son, who shouldn't have compassion on the child in his womb? These too can forget, yet I will not forget you. " (ESV)

The promise of God
Almost everyone experiences moments in life when they feel completely alone and abandoned. Through the prophet Isaiah, God makes a tremendously comforting promise. You may feel completely forgotten by every human being in your life, but God will not forget you: "Even if my father and mother abandon me, the Lord will keep me close" (Psalm 27:10, NLT).

The image of God
The Bible says that humans were created in the image of God (Genesis 1: 26–27). Since God created us male and female, we know that there are both male and female aspects in God's character. In Isaiah 49:15, we see a mother's heart in the expression of the nature of God.

The love of a mother is often considered the strongest and most beautiful existing. God's love also transcends the best that this world has to offer. Isaiah portrays Israel as a breastfeeding baby in his mother's arms, arms that represent God's embrace. The baby is totally dependent on his mother and trusts that he will never be abandoned by her.

In the next verse, Isaiah 49:16, God says: "I have engraved on the palm of your hands." The high priest of the Old Testament carried the names of the tribes of Israel on his shoulders and on his heart (Exodus 28: 6-9). These names were engraved on jewelry and attached to the priest's clothes. But God engraved the names of his children on the palms of his hands. In the original language, the engraved word used here means "to cut". Our names are cut permanently in the flesh of God. They are always before his eyes. He can never forget his children.

God yearns to be our main source of comfort in times of loneliness and loss. Isaiah 66:13 confirms that God loves us as a compassionate and comforting mother: "As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you."

Psalm 103: 13 reiterates that God loves us as a compassionate and comforting father: "The Lord is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him."

Over and over again the Lord says, "I, the Lord, created you and I will not forget you." (Isaiah 44:21)

Nothing can separate us
Perhaps you have done something so terrible that you believe that God cannot love you. Think about Israel's infidelity. As treacherous and unfair as she was, God never forgot her covenant of love. When Israel repented and turned to the Lord again, he always forgave and embraced her, like the father in the story of the prodigal son.

Read these words in Romans 8: 35–39 slowly and carefully. Let the truth in them permeate your being:

Can anything ever separate us from the love of Christ? Does that mean that he no longer loves us if we have problems or calamities, or if we are persecuted, hungry, destitute, in danger or threatened with death? ... No, despite all these things ... I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from the love of God. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, nor our fears for today nor our worries for tomorrow - not even the powers of hell can separate us from the love of God. No power in heaven above or in the earth below - in truth, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God which is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Now here is a stimulating question: is it possible that God allows us to live moments of bitter solitude in order to discover his comfort, compassion and faithful presence? Once we experience God in our loneliest place, the place where we feel most abandoned by humans, we begin to understand that it is always there. He has always been there. His love and comfort surround us, no matter where we go.

The deep and overwhelming loneliness of the soul is often the experience that brings us back to God or closer to Him when we move away. It is with us through the long dark night of the soul. "I will never forget you," he whispers to us. Let this truth support you. Let it sink deep. God will never forget you.