The Bracelet She Couldn't Read

When David and Maria Hernandez drove to the orphanage in Bogota, Colombia, in 2019, they carried a small silver bracelet engraved with three words: Siempre contigo — always with you. Their adopted daughter, Sofia, was eleven months old. She couldn't read the inscription. She couldn't understand the legal documents being signed. She had no concept of the promises being made on her behalf.

But David and Maria made them anyway.

They promised to feed her when she couldn't feed herself. To stay when staying got hard. To love without condition or expiration date. And they clasped that bracelet around her tiny wrist — not so Sofia would remember, but so they would.

This is the astonishing grammar of Genesis 9. When the Almighty sets the rainbow in the sky after the floodwaters recede, He doesn't say, "This will remind you of My promise." He says, "I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant" (Genesis 9:16). The God who forgets nothing binds Himself with a visible sign. The rainbow is God's bracelet — clasped across the sky not for our benefit alone, but as His own commitment marker.

Noah couldn't earn that covenant. Neither could the animals streaming off the ark. The promise was entirely one-sided — spoken by the Creator to creatures who could only receive it. Every rainbow you see is evidence that God keeps promises He made to Himself on your behalf.