May my lips speak Your praise all the days of my life, for You continually create a new song in my heart, sigh after mourning, a gasp after a laugh;
May You be the first word on my lips, the constant meditation of my heart, eliciting from withing the core of my being all that wells up to worship You;
May You be the source of my delight, drawing me into a dance where all creation worships You, every child-like, upturned heart praising Your name.
Let me receiving within my being a new heart, restored and recreated to encompass all Your light—as the moon reflects back to the sun with a brilliance that illumines the darkness, I year to show out Your love;
Let me hold open a heart to You, Your handmaiden for Your service, losing myself in wonder and releasing the inhibitions that I erect to withhold my surrender,
Let me loose the feebly anchoring ropes which I have bound about my heart to prevent rupture and loss wrecked by love and joy.
Only let me be like Mary, awed at the multitudes of angels You subtly slip into my life… let me revel like Hannah, magnifying Your name from the depths of soul, rejoicing in You my savior.
Only let me finally let go, and be the earthen vessel You made me as, not patching with unfit material the cracks in my sides, stopping up that life blood of Your heart;
Only teach me to surrender my fears and be content to be as You made me, running some still path of transformation as You teach me my own limits.
Hear my simple prayer, from a heart too weighty to let go in You light—You made us to bear Your burdens which are only heavy in our strength;
Hear the voiceless ache of my heart to learn the secret joy of submission and gingerly lay myself before You without constantly reclaiming the very gift I sought so hard to give;
Hear my confusion, a void noise, deeper than black-hole mystery, sucking out my life like a spectre feeding on my own soul… stealing away the joy in my life.
Return to me memory of this world of the living, for in You I have chosen  to trust beyond reason, even as I seek to substantiate my own weakness;
Return the hope and joy I once had in You, in the midst of darkness, which enlivened my entire world… turning away from a more morbid fixation.
Return the words of deliverance You once taught me, for you set me free and I returned to captivity, though I seek again the gaze of Heaven.
You have placed me in this world, to learn and to love, to feel and to think , to give and to receive—may I always hold open my hands to receiving and not fear the giving.
You were the first love of my heart, and now reigning as my idol, I understand why You decreed no images, for Your face is more varied than on one to fix the heart;
You again are the one I’ve returned to, in dissipating whirlwind, to just stillness again… and in there I know to be rest and contentment.
Send me, Lord Jesus, Your handmaiden is waiting.