Do you remember when you made the discovery that ink pens wrote smoothly on your skin? I muse at the hours of silly “Bic pen tattoos” I scribbled on my body as a kid. Gracie is quite the little artist and she recently made the discovery. The first thing I saw her draw on herself astonished me. I opened the palms of her hands and saw crosses and hearts on one hand and “I LOVE GOD!” inscribed on the other. She just looked up at me and said: “It’s because I just LOVE Him!” That she placed these inscriptions on the palms of her hands looked significant to me. In the palms of her hands she could grasp it and hold on to Him. On the palm of her hand she could not avoid seeing them and remembering her love.

My heart immediately leaped to some classic verses…

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind.” (Luke 10:27)

I want to love Jesus in a way that is “written” all over me. When my palms are open they are raised in delight of Him and when my palms are clenched in fists I am holding on to Him tightly- never wanting to be separated from Him or His love. But I have to admit that my love for Him exists and is motivated by this truth: “We love Him because HE first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) It occurred to me that in a way Grace was imitating how Jesus loves her—how He loves me and you…

“See, I will not forget you, I have engraved you on the palm of my hand.” (Isaiah 49:16)

As we approach Easter it is a striking thought to ponder that the Lord Jesus loved us so much that he gave his life on the cross. The scars on His hands are a permanent reminder. He did not just write our names in ink, but in blood. He looks into the palms of His hands and written there he sees your name… he sees mine. He looks at the palms of His hands and says: “Because I just LOVE you!” Those scars are forever. They are a permanent reminder of the finished work He accomplished on the cross. Because of His sacrifice our salvation is complete. When we accept Him as Lord and Savior we are written on the palm of His hand… forever. Yet, we are not just written on His hands, we are eternally resting in them too.

“I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.” (John 10:28)

In the palm of His hands Jesus grasps onto us and nothing can snatch us up. “No power of hell, No scheme of man, can ever pluck me from His hand.” (Townend, 2001) How marvelous. How wonderful! This truth so permeates my soul that what I want above all else is to strive to order the disordered loves in my life— to put Jesus where He belongs- in His rightful place on the throne of my heart and to love the Lord my God with all my heart, all my soul, all my strength and all my mind.  The longer I gaze at Him and His love, the more I love Him, the more I trust Him and the more I share in His inexpressible joy.

Let us therefore: “fix our eyes on Jesus- the author and perfecter of our faith. For the Joy set before Him he endured the Cross.” (Hebrews 12:1-2) That joy was me… that joy was you!

Remember this beloved: You are eternally resting in His hands. Be secure- he is holding on to you.

You are permanently engraved on His hands…. He peers at those scars and says: “Because I just LOVE you!”