Nate once gave me a Rolex watch worth $5000. When I later lost it, I felt awful. It used to be the only people who were given gold watches had earned them by working forty years at the same institution. Retirement and the watch came together, but I hadn’t done a thing to deserve such a fine gift. As always, Nate had been generous to his wife but not to himself, buying the watch he wished he had, for me. His own watch came from Walmart.

When I tried to think of some way to show my remorse over losing the watch, my only idea was to buy a Rolex for him. But I didn’t work outside our home and had no paycheck. The weekly allowance he gave me worked well to manage our household, but the dollars were mostly spoken-for. The only answer was to save a little bit here and there until I finally had enough.

It took me several years.

But the day finally came when I counted $2500 in my plump envelope of bills. I drove to Peacocks Jewelry Store feeling like a Depression-era child about to buy her dream bicycle.

As the salesman spread out the few Rolex designs my money would buy, I chose the one that most resembled the watch he’d chosen for himself years before, for which he’d paid about $25. Before I left the store, I asked if Peacock’s would engrave something on the back:

“I’ll love you till the end of time. Your Meg, Christmas, 1985.”

I couldn’t wait for Christmas morning. When it finally arrived, my gift was the hit I’d hoped it would be. Nate was dumbfounded, and he loved my engraved declaration of love on the back.

God also testifies of his deep love for us with an engraving. He says he’s carved us on his palms. In an effort to impress us with the depth of his commitment, he compares a nursing mother and her baby to his relationship with us and asks, “Can a mom forget her nursing child?”

I nursed all my babies. When I’d go out for an evening, leaving the baby at home, my body would always tell me it was time to head home and coax him or her to have an unscheduled meal, just to relieve the pressure. No nursing mother can forget her baby.

God says that in the unlikely case a nursing mother should forget, he never will. To prove it, he engraved us on his palms. Nate’s watch has been set aside now, and eventually it will stop running. But the good news about God’s love is that it’ll never stop.

Not ever.

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” (Isaiah 49:15-16)