mine to me

O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You sing my shame to rest and hold my secrets to your heart.

You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
I want to know your heart this well.

Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.
Guard it, Abbi, for sometimes I cannot keep my rage in check.

You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.
It chases away the chill of my uncertainty and gives me hope.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
Even so, help me understand.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
Why would I want to? What would be left of me?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths of hell, you are there.
I've been there, and you are there...

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
Someday...someday.

even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
And you have the strongest grip I've ever known...

If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"
When depression floods lungs and threatens to suck me under...

even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
You chase the dark corners out of my soul.

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
Do I make your eyes smile?

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
My heart leaps within me for joy when I see your fingerprints.

My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
How can I hate myself when you call me Lovely?

your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
You know what will be, and you still have hope for me...how can I have any less?

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Your voice in my soul is like music.

Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake, I am still with you.
Because you promised I'd never be alone again.

If only you would slay the wicked, O God!
Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!
There's so much pain here, Abbi.

They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.
Help me tell them who you really are.

Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD,
and abhor those who rise up against you?
Although this sometimes means I hate myself.

I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.
But I know you still see their hearts.

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
I hate this bleak uncertainty.

See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

Psalms 139