Isaiah 49, again

Isaiah 49:15-16 “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.”

These two verses graphically illustrate how You feel about me and further promote the idea of an “attachment theology”.

1. You will not forget me. To make this point, You picture the most precious and intimate attachment bond; the nursing mother and her infant. Could a mother ever forget her nursing child? The question is almost striking because the answer is so obvious. It is incomprehensible that this could ever occur. It is almost unnatural for a mother to forget her nursing child. And it is unnatural for a mother to not have a deep sense of bond with her infant. But You note that it could occur. It is possible that a nursing mother could forget or neglect her infant. Yet You will never forget me. The Hebrew word means “to forget or ignore”. In attachment terminology, You are always attentive to me. I am always present to You. I am always being considered by You. I am always on Your mind. No detail escapes Your notice. I am always being attended to by Your ever-constant caring gaze. To use our current culture wording, You do not have attention deficit disorder.
2. You have engraved me on the palms of Your hands. The Hebrew word for engraved is “cutting in or engraving in stone”. And it refers to “enacting a decree”. So what does it mean that You engrave me in the palms of Your hands? People often times write on their hands so that they will not forget something they need to do. I think that You are helping me understand that I am permanently etched into Your favor. You have carved my name on Your hands. You are saying that You are taking action to insure that You will never forget me. You are enacting a law to Yourself that You will never ignore me. You are binding Yourself to me. You are formalizing a decree that will not allow You to leave me unattended. And this decree is of Your own doing. You want me etched into Your palms. You want to attend to me. You want to be bound to me.
3. You keep my walls continually before Yourself. The Hebrew word for walls means “walls, father-in-law, mother-in-law”. And it can refer to close relatives in general. The word “before” means “to place a matter high, conspicuous before a person”. The word “continually” stresses the constancy of personal devotion. I get the feeling that the word “walls” is meant to describe the environment that I am living in now like living in a house but not necessarily the physical aspect as much as the relational aspect. Relatives seem to make me think of the relational past that I have experienced. In attachment theory, a person develops a particular attachment pattern or mental model as a direct result of the environment that he lived in. This pattern would be passed to him based on how his primary care-givers attuned to him or failed to attune to him. And unless strong measures are taken, this pattern will not change. And this environment is before You in a conspicuous place requiring much of Your attention. What I experienced in the past is a high priority to You because You know that if I am to get very close to You, I have to overcome some faulty attachment patterns that I learned in the past. You want that pattern changed so that we can bond. And then You add that term continually. You are personally devoted to attachment with me constantly. Never-ending. Always at it. And the cool thing is that I can see You changing that attachment pattern by all that You tell me. It is like the change occurs in me because of the way You bond to me. You show me how You are the perfect attachment figure.