In my dating quest, I’m not looking for just anyone. I’m searching for my soul mate. If you’ll indulge me a little, I’d like to go off on a tangent that intertwines the idea of soul mates and my faith. Hang tight! This might seem just a little “out there.” Suffice it say, I enjoy endulging my imagination. If you make it to the end, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

One of the things God talks little about in the Bible is Heaven.  Biblical scholars often believe that’s because if we know too much about it, we won’t persevere here on Earth.  And for whatever reason, existence on Earth is purposeful and necessary, albeit brief.  

I’ve pondered Heaven quite a bit, and I have some reservations, but I realized that those reservations are not based on what I know about Heaven, but what I don’t know. I’ve been taught there is no marriage in Heaven.  With the institution’s success in this life, it doesn’t surprise me at all that there is no carry over into the afterlife; however, from that I always assumed it meant there was no pairing.  For me, that gave a sense of disappointment, for I can’t imagine utopia without a shared bond with another individual…a soul mate, for it is the soul that is eternal. 

And I took my suppositions even further.  According to scripture, we are to receive new and perfect bodies, so the physical is present as well as the soul.  And what is the point of the having a physical body if it can’t be satisfied with sensory pleasure? What would be the rationale, for instance, of the aesthetically pleasing streets of gold and gates of pearl? The aroma of frankincense brought to an infant God? The sounds of angels singing around a celestial throne? 

The taste of the sweetest fruit?  I’ve wondered if we eat in Heaven, and if we do, how do we digest and expel waste? That just didn’t seem like a perfect scenario to me, but then I realized, that I was filling in my gaps of knowledge with pessimism instead of the optimism of serving an omnipotent Creator. The God who could place billions of stars in the sky could also make Heaven an eternal home where eating is without byproduct or physical consequence.  It is simply pleasure.  

Way leads on to way – thought to thought.  Do I dare ponder what is Heaven without the physical touch of a lover?  It was a simple epiphany to realize that God does not broach the subject of physical relationships there, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.  Human beings spend much of their adult life in quest of a soul mate.  We even use that term “soul” mate as if we somehow innately know that there is one other individual in the universe that we connect with on a spiritual level.  It is as if we are designed to search for our other half just as we are designed to search out our Creator.

Most of us never find our soul mate in our lifespans.  We hop from relationship to relationship hoping for happiness but feeling an emptiness on a level we cannot quite grasp.  Marriages fail, couples break up, and the consequences of sin reign in this world; but in the next, when harmony is restored, perhaps so is perfect union. I posit that Heaven is truly heaven because God has designed for each individual a perfect mate.  The mate that we didn’t find – or maybe we did find – here on Earth.  Maybe we settled for the wrong person.  Maybe our circumstances prevented us from being together or even meeting.  Maybe death took one away too soon.  Maybe we were too busy to look or notice.  But in spite of all the failed attempts in this realm, just maybe, God has the perfect gift for our human design in the next. Perhaps, to fulfill both the intent and pattern of Adam and Eve, we will be united with our soul mates after all. 

The picture that accompanies this post is of my parents who were lucky enough to discover they were soul mates at a very young age! After more than 50 years of marriage, they are more in love than ever!