Forgotten?

It’s 8PM. The day has been long. Dinner has finally been cleaned up and it’s time to FINALLY just sit down. And then the youngest excitedly announces it’s time for a family board game. Because this morning at 7AM, before the coffee had a chance to help you make wise choices, you agreed to a family game night. Tonight. You barely remember the conversation, but the kiddo sure does. In the busyness of the day (and maybe just a little wishful thinking), you just plain forgot.

You’ve been friends for a while. The closest of friends. The sharing of daily life is easy. The comfort in just knowing this friendship is present can turn a bad day around. And then, in what seems to be overnight, a complete disconnect. You’re left confused, hurt, a little mad. Feeling forgotten.

Whether you’re the one that has forgotten the important thing or the one who has been forgotten, there’s a sting. And we’ve all been on both sides.

The reality of life is, that even with the best of intentions, we forget. We forget the game night, the event, the special occasion. We forget to ask how the day went or how that appointment was. Sometimes, to an extent, we even forget a person. Time gets away from us. Physical distance creates relational distance. Some unresolved or unspoken something makes us disconnect.

Sometimes we’re walking through a hard place and the stay in the hard place is long. Longer than we’d like. And definitely longer than we’d have ever left ourselves there. Sometimes the hard place has endured for so long that you begin to question if God has forgotten you there. If He remembers at 8PM tonight that this morning at 7AM you asked…maybe even begged…for him give you a glimpse of life outside the hard place.

Then, in the midst of the hard, just when you start to believe you’ve been forgotten, God reminds you. He reminds of you a promise. A promise that He made and because He made it, He will keep it. “I will not forget you. I have written your name on the palms of my hands” (The irony of the beginning of Isaiah 49:15, is that Isaiah actually talks about a mother forgetting her child. I can’t help but think that thousands of years ago when that was written, God knew that 21st century moms would have some busy to combat and that we’d forget a game night or two.)

He won’t forget. He hasn’t forgotten. My name is written on the palm of his hand. Like when we were younger and wrote that important thing we didn’t want to forget on our hand. We knew we’d always remember if it was written there. And we didn’t dare wash that hand until whatever we wrote was taken care of.

That’s the remembering of the Father. HE will not forget. Your name is written on the palms of His hands. He’s not forgotten you in the hard place. He sees you. And better than that, He’s with you. He’s right there. He’s always there. He’s always acting on your behalf.

Your friend, a parent, a child, a boss, a leader may make you feel forgotten. “But I will not forget you. I have written your name on the palms of my hands.” And He’ll probably keep your favorite board game waiting for your arrival in heaven, too!