GOD, CAN I ALSO ASK YOU TO LET ME FALL IN LOVE?

For others ask for health, protection, strength. When you get to you, you almost lower your voice: God, I'd love to fall in love. I'd like to be loved well. Then you feel a little silly. As if, faced with the problems of the world, that desire was too small to enter into a prayer.

And yet you're not just talking about a romantic dinner. You're thinking about the confidence, the presence, a person to laugh with about a tiny thing and split the big ones. Maybe you want a wedding. Maybe after a disappointment, you just want to regain confidence in the idea of knowing someone.

Christian prayer can also accept this. The desire to love does not require to be hidden behind more solemn words.

You can tell God what you really want.

The Catechism, speaking of the question prayer, describes a relationship in which the person addresses himself to God by recognizing his own need. In our Father, Jesus teaches to ask for daily bread: concrete life enters into prayer.

Praying for love does not therefore mean making an out of place request. You can talk about the loneliness, the hope, the desire of a family. You can also recognize the less ordered parts: the comparison with friends, the fear that it is too late, the annoyance in front of the umpteenth question about your relationships.

You don't need to settle all these emotions before you pray. You can start just how you're doing. Even with a clumsy phrase, said on the way home and no one can hear you.

The other person remains free

There is, however, an important distinction. Asking to meet a good love is different from pretending that a precise person will return our feeling. The other is not the result of a successful spiritual journey.

If someone said no, prayer does not allow you to insist on, control or interpret every gesture as proof that you belong to each other. You can entrust your disappointment to God and respect that freedom. Even when it hurts.

A novena, devotion or shared prayer does not guarantee an engagement by a certain date. To be wary of such a promise is reasonable. Catholic tradition distinguishes trust in God from superstition, which attributes almost automatic efficacy to practices or formulas.

Waiting is not a failure

Perhaps you know the advice: when you stop looking for him, he will come. It sounds reassuring, but no one can know. And for those who have waited for a long time it can become another accusation: then I'm wanting too much, I'm doing something wrong.

Being single doesn't prove you're praying badly. It doesn't measure how lovable you are. And meeting a person is not the reward for those who have learned to be serene enough. Human stories are more complex than a prize given at the right time.

In the Christian vision, personal dignity does not depend on the sentimental state. Your life has relationships, responsibilities, possibilities of gift and joy right now. You can want a couple without describing everything you live like a waiting room.

Praying can change the questions you ask yourself

Instead of just asking when someone will come, you can also ask what you really are looking for in a bond. Do you want a presence with which to build, or the urgency of not feeling excluded leads you to accept whoever chooses you?

There is no need to respond impeccably. You can look at behavior: does this person respect your time? Can you express a disagreement? Do you feel free to keep friends and interests? Does the future he tells correspond to what he does today?

Prayer can accompany this attention. Discernment remains necessary even when a meeting seems wonderful. Feeling a strong emotion does not make it unnecessary to know a person over time.

Life can open with very normal gestures

If you want to meet someone, you can go to environments where you are well, welcome an invitation, propose an exit, use tools to meet with caution. You don't have to wait for an extraordinary sign to take a respectful initiative.

And you can protect yourself from conversations that turn every family lunch into an update on your emotional situation. One possible answer is: if there is something I want to tell you, I will. In the meantime, I'd like to talk about something else.

Desiring love does not mean giving everyone the right to comment on your waiting. You can guard this part of yourself discreetly, without being ashamed of it.

A prayer possible, without promises on the finale

Lord, you know my desire to love and be loved. Help me meet others with sincerity, respect their freedom and guard mine. Give me lucidity before what hurts and courage before what can grow. Take me even today, in the life I already have in my hands. Amen.

These are original words of CHIARA!, which you can adapt. After telling them, you don't have to show that you're suddenly quiet. You can continue to desire, to live, to know. With open hope and your whole value.