"Is it okay for me to pray that I find love?"

Someone wrote in asking whether it's okay to pray to find love. She started by covering herself. She knows anyone can pray for anything. She knows there's no guarantee that a specific prayer gets a specific outcome. And she said she isn't sure she's ever had a prayer answered — or if she did, she couldn't tell it was one, and she added that this was on her.

Then the situation. She's in her mid twenties. She has never been in love. Never been asked on a date. Never been pursued. Never been told she's loved like that. So she was wondering whether this is something God would want her to ask him. Not because he doesn't know — she says he definitely does — but because she never has.

Then more covering. She knows there are plenty of kinds of love. She says she isn't very good at recognising love directed at her, so maybe she misses some of it. Then this: "I don't want to sound ungrateful but, I still hope to be chosen one day." And this — she knows God's love is the one she should be wanting to feel, but she's made peace with not having those kinds of experiences.

Then the questions she actually came to ask. If she prays, will she hear his answer. And if the answer is no, does he have some other love reserved for her. And then her last line, with a smiley face at the end of it.

"I just don't know if I can feel this alone forever."

The surface question is a permission question. Is this an acceptable thing to bring to God. And underneath it, a second one — if I do bring it, will I be able to tell what he says back.

But read how the post is written. Every time she gets near the actual want, she pulls back and corrects herself before anyone else can. I don't want to sound ungrateful. I know God's love is the one I should be wanting. There are plenty of kinds of love. Maybe I'm just bad at noticing it. If I missed an answer, that's on me. She apologises for the want four or five times in a short post, and nobody in the thread has said a word to her yet.

So the real question isn't whether prayer is permitted. She knows it is; she says so in her first line. The question is whether this want is allowed to stay in its own words when she brings it, or whether it has to be converted into something more acceptable first. Turned into contentment. Or into asking for God's love instead, since that's the one she's supposed to want. Or into asking to be shown the love that's already around her, which is a way of asking for nothing. Whether she's allowed to say the plain thing. I want to be chosen. I want someone to love me.

There's no verse that tells you which desires qualify. But there is a woman in Scripture who was offered that exact correction, out loud, by someone who loved her. And she didn't take it.

First Samuel, chapter one. Hannah. She has no children, and the text is blunt about why — it says the LORD had shut up her womb. Her husband Elkanah has another wife, Peninnah, who does have children, and the text says Peninnah provoked her sore, to make her fret. Then this detail: she did it year by year. Every time they went up to the house of the LORD, year after year, she provoked her. So Hannah wept, and did not eat.

And here is Elkanah, who loves her, trying to help. Hannah, why weepest thou? and why eatest thou not? and why is thy heart grieved? am not I better to thee than ten sons? Sit with that, because it is the same sentence. Am I not enough for you. Isn't what you already have better than the thing you're crying for. That is exactly what she is saying to herself in the post. God's love is the one I should be wanting. I don't want to sound ungrateful. And it isn't a cruel line — he means it kindly. It's the reasonable thing to say to someone grieving over something they don't have.

And Hannah doesn't answer it. The text just says she rose up. She goes to the house of the LORD, and it says she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the LORD, and wept sore. And when she prays, she does not pray for peace about it, and she does not pray to want it less. She asks for the specific thing. Look on the affliction of thine handmaid. Remember me. Do not forget me. Give unto thine handmaid a man child. That's the prayer. It names what she wants in the plainest possible words, with no softening on either end of it.

And it goes badly at first. Eli the priest is watching her mouth move with no sound coming out, and he assumes she's drunk and tells her to put away her wine. So the first response she gets, in the house of God, praying the most honest prayer in the chapter, is an accusation. She answers him — I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit, I have poured out my soul before the LORD — and Eli says, go in peace, and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition. The text then says her face was no more sad. It doesn't explain that. Nothing had happened yet. It doesn't offer it as a method.

And don't skip past the year by year. That's the middle, and the middle is years long. The same trip, the same house, the same woman provoking her, the same husband asking why what he gives her isn't enough. She did not spend those years praying to be content with them.

Psalm 25.

Unto thee, O LORD, do I lift up my soul. O my God, I trust in thee: let me not be ashamed. Shew me thy ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths. Lead me in thy truth, and teach me: for thou art the God of my salvation; on thee do I wait all the day. Remember, O LORD, thy tender mercies and thy lovingkindnesses; for they have been ever of old. Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to thy mercy remember thou me. Mine eyes are ever toward the LORD; for he shall pluck my feet out of the net. Turn thee unto me, and have mercy upon me; for I am desolate and afflicted. The troubles of my heart are enlarged: O bring thou me out of my distresses.

Count what's actually in that. Shew me. Teach me. Lead me. Remember. Remember not. Turn to me. Have mercy on me. Bring me out. Eight things asked for, in nine lines. It's almost nothing but asking. And it isn't polite about it — there's no throat-clearing, no I know I shouldn't be asking this, no I'm sure you have your reasons. He just says what he wants. Turn to me. I'm alone and it hurts. Get me out of this. Nobody in the psalm stops to check whether the request is a mature one.

And notice what he says about his own state. I am desolate and afflicted. That's the whole diagnosis. He doesn't argue it, or explain how he got there, or apologise for still being in it. Her post says she doesn't want to sound ungrateful; Psalm 25 doesn't spend one word on that question. It isn't in the psalm's mind at all. Which is worth saying plainly — the idea that a want has to be dressed up before God will look at it is not from Scripture. The prayers in Scripture are far ruder than most of us are.

Now, her other question. If she prays, will she hear his answer. Scripture doesn't promise she'll be able to tell. Hannah's word came through a priest who had just accused her of being drunk, which is not how anyone would have chosen to hear from God. And the psalm ends with the man still waiting — on thee do I wait all the day. He's asked eight times and he's still there at the end of it. So the honest answer is that asking is not the same as being answered, and Scripture doesn't collapse the two. But asking is not the part that needs permission.

So if you're in this, here's the one thing to do tonight.

Ask him for it. Out loud. In the words you'd use if nobody was going to hear it. Not, help me be content. Not, help me see the love that's already around me. Say the thing. I want to be loved. I want someone to choose me. I don't want to be alone. And don't put the apology on either end of it.

If your own words won't come, Hannah's are there. Look on my affliction. Remember me. Do not forget me. Or the psalm's. Turn thee unto me, and have mercy upon me; for I am desolate and afflicted.

There's nothing promised about what happens next. Hannah went up year by year, and for years the answer was the same as the year before.

"I still hope to be chosen one day."

She wrote that after apologising for it. Hannah did not apologise. She stood in the house of God and asked out loud for the exact thing she wanted, and a priest thought she was drunk, and she kept asking anyway.

Turn thee unto me, and have mercy upon me; for I am desolate and afflicted.