A prayer for dating couples

God finally gave me a wife a little more than a year ago, but not before walking with me through a winding decade of temptation and sometimes failure, of waiting, wanting, and wondering why not yet.

Over many years, I learned that God does not guarantee temporary joys for his children like physical health, marriage, success at work, or children.

Q: I’ve read that it’s emotionally unchaste to pray with your significant other if you’re not married because prayer is an intensely intimate experience between you and God.

I’ve prayed the liturgy of the hours, chaplets of divine mercy, and rosaries with close friends daily, and we’ve discovered just how crucial that prayer has been to strengthening our friendship.

If you don’t know where to start in prayer — how to begin talking to God daily, or how to surrender your desires and difficulties in singleness to him — here are nine prayers for the not-yet-married life, each with God’s words to help shape your longing and waiting. If those seven words and the faith beneath them were enough to carry Jesus through the cross for my sake, they should be enough to carry me through anything in this life for his sake.

Prepare me to make the most of marriage or singleness, whatever you have chosen and planned for me.

"Almighty God, hear this prayer." Dear Lord, I offer you this prayer, to help me with my current relationship situation. Dear Lord, you know what path I am on right now and that I am in agony. You have instituted marriage since You found that it is not good for man to be alone.

Please take away all the pain and hurt in my heart. I deeply believe that You have given me this person to love and to hold for the rest of my days.