Never Alone

"If I were to say, "Certainly the darkness will cover me, and the light will turn to night all around me," even the darkness is not too dark for You to see, and the night is as bright as day; darkness and light are the same to You." -Psalm 139:11-12 [NET] 

Psalm 139 really spoke to me this morning. Through it God assured me that I will never be abandoned by Him and that I am precious to Him. This one psalm is also so chalked full with encouraging verses regarding purpose, which is something that has been on my mind frequently this summer.
Verse 7 starts out asking, "Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your Spirit?" Verses 8-9 describe the far ends of the earth that we could go, but verse 10 brings the assurance that, "Even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me."
Often I've thought that verses 7-9 meant that I could never get away from God in the sense that I couldn't escape His conviction or 'punishment' of sin. While it's true that I cannot hide from God, I now think that these verses are illustrating a very different truth: I cannot go anywhere where God is not. The 10th verse makes that abundantly clear; He will be with us wherever we go in life.
The next verses are verses 11-12 [quoted above]. According to Strong's concordance, the word 'darkness' that is used here symbolizes misery, destruction, and death. As I read these verses it was like God was telling me that I will go to some dark places in my life, but that I will be a light in those places and I will never be alone. God isn't intimidated by darkness; He will never send us somewhere that He won't be.
I don't know what my future holds; I'm not sure where those dark places will be, but I do know that God will never stop holding me in His hand and that He will never stop guiding me.
The last verse that really stood out to me was verses 16-17:

Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them. How precious are Your thoughts* to me, O God! How great is the sum of them. 

Even though I don't know exactly what I'm going to do in life, I'm comforted because God promises me a 'future and a hope.' I comforted because I know that God has a firm purpose for my life and that nothing can take that away from me. I know that God's plans are above my and that He can do 'exceedingly above what I could ever ask or think.' And I know that, while I don't have a clue, He does, and He has since the creation of the world.

How awesome is that?

-Meaghan

*purposes, aims [Strong's concordance]