How do you pray?

I've been taught ask and ye shall receive. Everything happens for a reason. I'm learning or being told that I'm praying all wrong. So I come to you to see how do you pray. How do you ask the Lord or your God, as I understand that we all believe in different things, to give you the things you need. I close my eyes and I speak to God as if he were standing in front of me and I ask outright. I don't mix words. I don't add flurry. I just ask! For example, when my first love and I broke up I asked the Lord to bring him back to me. I asked him to bring us back together.

We never got back together. However, 14 years later he came back into my life and has never left. We are great friends to this day. So I am learning that I wasn't specific enough. I'm learning that you must be very specific. You have to spell it out in the most detailed way possible. The answers you get from God may not always look the way you thought but when you focus you will see that it was exactly what you asked for. I'm by no means good at this. I'm just now at 39 beginning to learn how to do it. Which is why I pose the question.

I have had many unanswered prayers in my life. Prayers that were the most important prayers I could ever pray. Looking back on some of them maybe it was for the best but there are others that I needed answered. So I begin to wonder. Were they unanswered because I didn't ask correctly? Would they have been answered if I did do it right? What do you think?

I was also taught to be grateful for what you receive in life. Not to long ago I heard a woman I trust and admire tell a bunch of people that once you accept your hardships and be grateful for them and the lessons that come from them you will then begin to receive the grace of the Lord that you seek. It's in that gratefulness and acceptance that brings the grace. But I'm being told that that is not true. So tell me what you believe. Let's help each other grow together to make this world a better place. How do you pray?