When we are in pain, our tefillos almost write themselves. Hashem, send me my yeshuah. Hashem, send me my shidduch. Hashem, let the waiting end. The words pour out of us, again and again — Shacharis, Mincha, Maariv, all throughout the day.

But sometimes the most powerful tefillah isn't a new request. It's a new focus.

There was once a father with two older daughters still waiting for their bashert. The pain was constant, and the agmas nefesh immense. He came before Rav Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg, zt"l, one of the poskei hador, and wept. "Rebbi, I am davening thousands of tefillos. Every single day I beg Hashem that my daughters should be married."

Rav Scheinberg listened, and then gently offered him a different way to daven. "You are asking Hashem to send your daughters their zivug — and of course you want that. But shift the focus. Don't only ask Him for the yeshuah; tell Him why you want it. Say: Ribbono shel Olam, I want my daughters to be married because I want more reasons to thank You. I want more reasons to say Nishmas."

The father returned to America and changed not the frequency of his tefillos, but their focus. He no longer davened only that his daughters should marry. He davened: Hashem, bring it about so that I will have more reasons to thank You.

Within three months, both daughters were engaged.

לך לבדך אנחנו מודים — to You alone we give thanks. When our requests are, at their core, a longing for new ways to thank Hashem, tefillah stops being a transaction and becomes a relationship — and that is the tefillah He treasures most.

So as we wait, let us daven for our yeshuos with our whole hearts, and let us mean every word: Hashem, I want this so that I will have endless new reasons to stand before You and say thank You.