Inscribed: One Year Later (OneWord 2014)

On New Year's Day, I wrote this in my journal:

I'd read the verse before, but this time, everything changed. The words came to life and jumped off the page at me:

Isaiah 49:15-16

“Can a woman forget her nursing child
And have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.
"Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands;
Your walls are continually before Me.

That promise is more than I can wrap my mind around. I am inscribed on His hands. When Jesus looks at those nail scars, He sees me. He sees my broken past, my failures and fears, my sins - but they don't matter anymore, because I am inscribed.

I am inscribed on His hands, and that changes everything.

A year later, I still can't wrap my mind around that promise.

When we read through the Bible, we see over and over again that God had a plan to inscribe us. From the first sin (Genesis 3:15), He already knew the cost to save us. And it didn't end on the cross. He promises that He is always with us. (Matthew 28:20). We inscribed. Not written, so that we can be washed away, but inscribed. Engraved. Forever His.

In the beginning, I though this journey through "inscribed" would be about God's love for me. In part, it has been. But in more ways, it's been about my love for Him, how His love changes and refines me. He has worked with me through hard things things this year. Through Lent, and the study that opened wounds from decades past. Through hard truths, struggles and trials. I still have so far to go, but there is grace. Always grace.

This verse is now burned into my heart. Into my life. I am inscribed by the God of the universe. The One who breaths life, who hung each star, who painted the sunrise - He loves me so much that He inscribed me on His hands. He engraved me there. He will never leave me. I may fail Him, yet when I turn back to ask forgiveness, He stands waiting with open arms.

I am inscribed on His hands, and that changes everything.