Saturday, May 23, 2015

Forgotten Love

“Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the child of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.” (Isa. 49:15)

God takes the most extreme, unlikely example of forgotten love that can be humanly imagined as a contrast to His own undying love for Israel. The mother who would forsake her child is a prime example of the phrase in Romans 1:31, “without natural affection.” To carry a child in her womb, beneath her heart, is to seal a bond that neither time nor space can sever—or so it would seem to me. Yet God says it can happen. Unfortunately, I’ve seen it happen.

What kind of awful scenario could give rise to such a thing, I wonder? Perhaps a mother could become so consumed with something or someone else to the point that she would sacrifice her child in order to have the other person or thing. Or maybe the child himself, or herself, could bring such pain or disgrace that maternal love would be pushed to the very limits. But, as I say, these are only hypothetical, and to my mind, unreasonable, scenarios.

My own mother, in the throes of Alzheimer’s, did not recognize who I was. She did, however, remember she had a daughter named Salle Jo, and spoke most tenderly of her to me. She didn’t forget her child; she simply was not aware I was that child.

God does not suffer from such maladies, nor is He subject to the other possibilities mentioned. His love will neither wander nor wane. He goes so far as to say in Romans eight that neither death, life, angels, principalities, powers, things now or those to come, the highest or the lowest of all, no creature known to man or God—none of these will ever separate us from the love of God.

As long as God lives, I will live…and I will be loved, because God’s love can do anything…except forget me.                                                                                   

“The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.” Jer. 31:3)


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