“Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?” He asks us in Isaiah 49:15. What a ridiculous idea, He’s implying.
Mothers know the moment when your baby becomes real to you. For some, it’s the moment you decide to try for a baby. For others, it comes with the rush of anticipation at seeing two lines on a stick. Sometimes it doesn’t come until the small bundle is in your arms or the first shadowy picture on an ultrasound.
However the baby exists, whether in the future or snuggled up against you, your whole being changes focus. It changes your worries, your hopes and dreams, your physical well-being, and your emotional functioning. You change in a way that cannot be reversed.
You learn to carry your baby with you, physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, etc. They are always there, in your heart, thoughts, conversation, whether they are physically present or not.
And this, the love and compassion and care a mother has for her baby, is the standard Christ uses to show His love for us. It is more likely for a mother to forget her newborn, He says, than it is for Him to forget us.
This scripture means even more to me after losing Joseph. Forget my baby? Impossible! He is not physically here, and yet he is engraven on my heart and my mind and my uterus and my whole being.
These verses tell me that Christ understands the love we have for our babies and how they change us, whether they are only here for a moment or our whole lives.
I believe He grieves with us, as He did Mary and Martha. I believe He weeps with us at the loss of those we love, no matter how big or small. I believe He weeps with you.
We are “graven upon the palms of [His] hands” and our “walls are continually before [Him].” He wants us to be with our babies and loved ones again through His grace. He heals hearts and offers hope.
“Can a woman forget her sucking child?” He answers,”yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.” And I intend to hold Him to that.
