Lord my God, bestow upon Your servant that holy smile which grants me endurance. For I have learned how precious the treasure of Your presence is. All else is nothing but emptiness beside you and Your Word, Lord God. Remove me from the enticing pursuit of this world’s honeycomb where the sweetness is only temporary and the resulting stings leave me scorned with bitterness and skepticism. Let my heart follow the heaven-born instinct to run into Your arms when the wounds from this earthly existence prove too much to bear. Truly, Your wings of grace offer me solace from my ills. My desire for You, God, is only intensified by my failure to find consolation from any other source. I turn my gaze upon Your ethereal Kingdom and away from well-meaning friends and human advice or reasoning. You are wisdom, Lord. You are all things good. Even the affliction allowed by Your hand is for my ultimate benefit. Why drink from a broken cup when You have shown me the way to the spring of life that never runs dry? So I come in devout prayer, Lord God. I come with the cry of petition – let me know where I might find the One my soul loves, my Creator, my God and my Savior. Under the Word of the Lord found in Song of Solomon 3:2 and the authority of Christ, I pray.

I will seek Him whom my soul loves.
Song of Solomon 3:2, ESV