I was young woman when I first discovered Psalm 139. It was at a time when I needed the assurance of God’s continuing presence with me. I needed to know the hovering hand of God’s grace over me, around me and holding me. In the years since, I’ve read Psalm 139 at hospital beds, in care facilities, assigned it to Confirmation students and promoted it at Bible Studies.

Its comforting words are a reminder that God is with us whatever we might face in life. God will never leave us, or desert us. Whatever life might bring us for good or for ill, God  will always be  a part of it.

While the writer of the Psalm mediates on his life, he realizes he has never strayed so far, that he wasn’t met by the presence of God.

Reflecting on the mystery of his life, in an era when over 50% of children would never reach adulthood, the psalmist wonders at his own life. He ponders how it is that he could have been mysteriously made, born whole and healthy, when so many others weren’t.

Thinking about God and his relationship with God, he understands that God knows him in a way that no human being could. In God he is fully known and fully loved. God he says, understands his thoughts and the reasons for them . . . knows the way he thinks and feels. Should he try to run away from God, he couldn’t, because everywhere he would go, God would already be there.

To be known, completely known by another, and be accepted for who one is, is a tremendous gift. To be loved regardless of our fallibilities, in spite of those mistakes of yesterday, and some from today, and still loved, is precious to our souls.

We can search a lifetime to find a person who will accept and love us that way. But here is God, knowing and loving us intimately already, accepting us the way we are, as we are.

“Search me,  O God,” he prays, “and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting . Psalm 139:23-24 

This is the prayer of one who searches for truth. is committed to live life with integrity, and rests secure of their place in God’s realm.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O  God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you. Psalm 139:17-18