There is a prayer in the Bible that ends badly. Psalm 88 runs for eighteen verses and never turns. There is no resolution, no bright edge at the end, no but yet, O Lord. It closes with the line: “darkness is my closest friend.” Scripture puts it in the prayer book anyway.
You Are Allowed to Pray Like This is sixty prayers in that tradition — written in the language of the Psalms, for readers who have run out of the usual words. It is a book for people who have sat by hospital beds, buried someone they love, watched a marriage or a body come apart, or waited on a phone call they hoped would never come. It is a book for people whose faith has not gone away, but has stopped fitting the situation.
The sixty laments are gathered into ten themed parts: prayers for the body, for watching someone go, for the children, for love, for work and money, for the inner life, for God Himself, for parents and time, for the world, and for the hidden griefs that never got named out loud. Ten closing prayers give the reader words to argue with God, in the tradition of Abraham at Sodom, Job on the ash heap, Habakkuk on the wall, and Jacob at the ford of the Jabbok. An index of situations at the front helps the reader find a prayer that fits. Sixty supporting Scriptures at the back stand behind them.