Written by Dr. Faith Pierce
“Do I matter? Has God forgotten me?”
Have these refrains been reverberating in your head?
Maybe you are used to shoving your needs aside to prioritize work, an aging parent, or a selfish spouse. But time continues to zoom by while your life is stuck on idling.
Take your co-worker, for instance—former co-worker, that is. Now that the big boss has bestowed her a promotion, she saunters into the office with a new Prada purse and pinstripe suit.
What about your raise? When is it coming?
At the end of another blurry week—when “desire fulfilled” (Proverbs 13:12) feels more foreign than a French menu—do you question whether God sees you? If He cares about what you are going through? Is the Lord too preoccupied to keep track of yourpuny plight?
Working at a ministry which features so many in need of so much, I never exhaust the list of hurting souls to attend to. Getting lost in their needs is easy as exhaling.
What is more, Does God care about me?—a taboo thought—strives to sneak in with every breath.
Straggling back to my office one Monday—muddled between miserable and morose—I barely notice the approaching man.
The brisk bounce in his steps announces his tenacity to tackle the day with joyful eagerness.
So contrary to my mood.
As the guy passed, he tosses two infectious words my way.
“Hi, Sister!”
Brief, but bursting with meaning.
His chipper tone is not what perks me up. It is that he captures my core identity: a fellow Christian—a sister in the faith. A split second is all it takes for him to highlight the one thing that matters in the midst of my melancholy. I’m a daughter of the Most High!
Reality is registering. Of coursethe Father has not forgotten me. As though building on the man’s words, God assures my heart. “I’ve seen what you’ve been through, dearest. You’re never alone.”
That brief encounter was like a spritz of fresh oxygen to my spirit, I have to pass it on to you. This is how we are going to do it: read one line, then do accordingly.
- Scrutinize your hands. (Yep, I am doing it now.)
- Flip them palm-side up, and examine each hand. Do your palms look identical? (Mine do not, because of a couple of moles on my left hand.)
- Aside from the meandering lines etched on each palm, what else is there? (I spot said moles on my left palm.)
- Rub your right palm with your other hand. Appreciate the texture of that palm. Then do the same with your left palm.
Why are we doing this, you ask?
To imitate God. After all, He gazes at His palms—a lot—and for good reasons:
Can a woman forget her nursing child? Will she have no compassion on the child from her womb? Although mothers may forget, I will not forget you. I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. Your walls are always in my presence (Isaiah 49:15-16, GWT).
Next time doubts squawk, “God’s forgotten you!”, look down.
Peer at your palms.
Remember that He will never forget you.
Ever.
Since His palms bear a tattoo of your smiling face, why should you frown?
Dr. Faith Pierce is a licensed psychologist in California. She has a PhD in Clinical Psychology and an MA in Theology. Other than her name, which is a pseudonym, everything else about her is true.