Love Comes From Faith
A different kind of love from my soul mate journey
You hear about these couples who meet again later in life and finally end up together. That’s my love story in a nutshell.
Most the time, you never really know the details of how these people came back together. They give you the short version of their fairy tale ending. The long version can be hard to follow, and well… long in our 30 second sound bite attention span society.
So these interesting stories usually end with… “and the rest is history”. Couples don’t tell you that there was so much more involved in ending up with their Soul Mate. So I thought sharing mine would maybe help you to figure out if you’ve met your Soul Mate (that could happen in a million ways).
If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.
My Story
When I met my Soul Mate, I had an impression that this could be the person I would marry. It wasn’t wishful thinking. Actually had I known at the time what I would go through for this love, I may never have gone along.
Our first meeting was a feeling of love at first sight (from a distance). There was an immediate attraction. It was too soon without a conversation, knowing if there was deeper chemistry. But in just the first 5 seconds, my impression was that I already knew this person. And when a conversation happened, this person talked just like me.
Love works in mysterious ways.
And our coming together, did not happen just like that. There were complications that we created. We dated “off and on” for 22 years, and spent years living separate lives. We didn’t speak for years and then one day we are talking. And dating again. And then not. And then back on. This went on a few times, until we got engaged.
I’m convinced fate and destiny brought us together time and time again, despite the odds of us both being single at the same time.
The first time we re-met, I had a feeling that my instincts 13 years prior were confirmed. I had irregular visions and dreams happening about my now partner, right before we re-met, and my heartbeat was racing (yet my heart was at peace). The uncontrollable fast heartbeat was deep in the background like a murmuring chant, not nervous surface energy like when your heart is beating out of your chest when you’re about to present in front of a group or like when you have “butterflies in the stomach”.
This was a strong stirring that my spirit had been making me aware of a direction I needed to head in, which was not the life I was living at the time.
The reason I knew it came from my spirit, was because this feeling was a calm undertone in my body and I didn’t have to act or react on anything. It was just a knowing inside me.
It did not come from the brain or daily thoughts that can be loud. The feeling was a quiet nudging, and gentle reminders that kept at me and did not go away, until I performed actions that this “nudging” wanted me to perform to accept next steps. Like whispers you hear in the wind. But it felt like it came from inside my heart (and not from outside my body). I was not confused. These whispers led to our meeting again 10 years after the last time we saw each other.
This is when we started dating again. But then one day about a year later, the whispers faded. And I was back to life on my own. My Soul Mate and I weren’t ready to come together for good, until another 9 years later. The journey of eventually joining together as a committed couple was by no means easy as there were many re-routes in between.
If I wanted easy, I may have chosen another course (if I could). I’m not sure if I chose a different destination (with another person), would it have worked out or if I would be back to this path that seemed so much greater than my being, and beyond my control.
Only in faith did I know that one day my already identified Soul Mate and I were going to be together, permanently. And I didn’t want to fight this destiny.
So I gave up on trying to change this course, but I went on with my life apart from my Soul Mate. I let life take its course in relationships. I followed the callings in front of me. As I knew those in front of me not meant to be, would eventually or right away fade from my life. They would fizzle out.
True love doesn’t fizzle out
The love that doesn’t fizzle out is your true love, but you will only know this with time.
As years pass, love gets stronger, the longer you are apart from the one you’re supposed to be with. Like the old adage says, “absence makes the heart grow fonder”.
Faith grows as does your belief that it will eventually work out. You’ve been through so many trials together that could’ve destroyed your relationship the first, and umpteenth time. But it didn’t. You grew together in bond but may not realize it until years later.
And you feel a deepness of love from a force greater than yourself. It’s love that permeates your existence. You didn’t know you had this kind of love in you. It’s very real, and nothing make-believe. It’s the Romeo and Juliet love that is all consuming and inescapable.
But unlike young, naïve love, it’s not dangerous and controversial. It’s a healthy addictive love (where you can spend time apart). And you believe your love partner is one of your life’s purposes. It’s a dedication love to acknowledge that there’s a greater force out there watching over us, and sacrificial, as a knowing that we belong together even when times are difficult.
Both partners have this knowing, but understands it in the way they’re each specifically designed to absorb this information.
Compatibility isn’t the reason for joining forces. Despite the differences, you finally figure out staying together is better even if you remain two independent thinking souls (like my soul mate and I). That’s the real test of love. And your faith is ever more tested. To grow something deeper than either of you knew was capable of until you had to go through it. To learn the real meaning of love.
