Well, it’s that time of year again, the month we in the U.S. celebrate love and romance. Everywhere you look and every store you enter has red and white heart displays, monstrous boxes of special chocolates, or reminders—and enticements—to buy that special someone a gift for the BIG day—February 14.
Saint Valentine’s Day.
One day a year where we’re encouraged to celebrate and honor our sweethearts. Our soul mates.
But what if you don’t have a special “sweetheart?” That special “someone” you can toast and dine with by candlelight?
Then why not choose to celebrate a different type of soul mate? A special someone who has connected with your soul, like your BFF. Maybe a best girl or guy friend you can thank for being so special to you.
Who’s your soul mate?
Guideposts recently explored the question of soul mates in their Big Question section of their Mysterious Ways publication. The question?
Do soul mates exist?
Here are some of the answers they found:
Dr. Joe Beam, author of The Art of Falling in Love offers some interesting–and good—advice for those still looking and pining for that special someone to spend the rest of their lives with.
“There is no indication that God made just one person for you. The whole concept that there is one person who is absolutely perfect sets up impossible expectations. It’s up to us to pray, to expect God to be involved in this process, but also to use our own judgment and wisdom and to look for a person that we can commit to for life.”
Stephen Cope, author of Soul Friends believes soul mates absolutely do exist.
“Though it’s not helpful to think about them as necessarily romantic relationships, or as happening only once in a lifetime. Soul mates are that handful of people with whom we connect profoundly, deeply, magically, even mystically—over the course of a lifetime.”
Dr. Paulette Sherman, psychologist and author of Facebook Dating: From First Date to Soul Mate says,
“Soul mates exist, whether they are predestined or are forged in this life. They bring out one another’s potential and also mirror one another’s unhealed places so that they can grow. Often together soul mates achieve their higher purpose and better the world.”
I can relate to her statement. Both my husband and I came to our relationship heavily laden with hurtful baggage—dysfunctional family units that caused a lot of identified and unidentified issues, which have slowly (and sometimes painfully) been exposed and rectified over the years.
While we have, unfortunately, hurt one another during the course of our 38-year relationship, we have also grown and healed together. We have held and walked one another through some painful realizations and events. He is my greatest and most loving support; and I am his. We truly have brought out one another’s potential and mirrored one another’s unhealed places so that we can grow!
Pastor and author Justin Buzzard (Date Your Wife) believes:
“Your ultimate soul mate is God, not another human being. Only God can meet you at that deep soul level. Once you discover that, you open yourself up to having a soul mate on earth. You become more able to connect on an incredibly close level with another person.”
Rabbi Deborah K. Bravo talks about the Judaic soul mate concept.
“In Judaism, there is a concept that people have a b’shert, one person with whom they are meant to spend their life. Many believe that your b’shert is destined, but it can also be the right person you meet at the right place and time in your life.”
Finally, Rick Hamlin, Guideposts Senior Contributing Editor and author of Pray for Me, absolutely believes soul mates exist.
“Yes! My wife and I were friends a long while before we discovered we were soul mates—that couldn’t have happened without the divine. There’s no reason why good friends can’t be soul mates too. Think of David and Jonathan. ‘…the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul’ (1 Samuel 18:1). The word soul is used here for a reason.”
I can so relate to Rick’s assessment.
Chris and I were friends before it hit me that we were soul mates. And it was a hard hit. A shot from heaven struck into my heart. In a split second, my attitude toward him changed from friend to “Wow! I really LIKE this guy!” And by like I mean that my heart pounded and my hands jittered at his nearness. In one fell swoop. We’d known one another for a year before that smack-between-the-eyes event. Thirty-five married years later, I can attest to that not being a mistake.
But I can also list a number of close friends I would tally up in the soul mate column. We are friends who have knit-together hearts. There is an otherworldly closeness we enjoy, an uncanny intimacy we share.
While girls tend to drift this way, it’s also critical for men to have guy friends like this. Men they can talk to man-to-man. Men who understand things about men that a woman never can.
Those are soul mates.
And we can celebrate those relationships this month too!
Your soul mate stories—
Do you have any soul mate stories to tell? I’d love to hear them!
Until March 1, when I’ll be undergoing arthroscopy and meniscus repair on my right knee, enjoy celebrating soul mates and love!
Blessings,
Andrea
“Certainly there was an Eden….We all long for it, and we are constantly glimpsing it.” —J.R.R. Tolkien
2019 © Andrea Arthur Owan. All rights reserved.