Soulmates and Personal Revelation: or On Agency, Part the Second

Life is a forge, and we are the metal: if we are to be strong and virtuous tools we must be placed in the fire and hammered until we cannot break.  Life is a loom and our journey is accomplished one thread at a time, line upon line, precept upon precept.  Our life is clay on a potter's wheel and we must shape it and reshape it until it is what we want it to be.

False Paradigm II

Marriage and Soulmates (or the lack thereof)

I used to believe that there was one person in this world that God wanted me to marry.  I knew so many general authorities had said there is no such thing as a Soul Mate -- that every marriage isn't Saturday's-Warrior-esque -- but obviously God knew who I was going to marry and He wouldn't let me marry a jerk or anyone that wasn't perfect for me (and, really, how many people are out there that are perfect for me? Probably only one.) So it was kind of like a retrospective soulmate. All I had to do was find him, but even that would be some kind of miraculous meeting totally orchestrated by God, and God would tell me when the time was right to marry him. It's all predestined, after all.

Let me share some quotes with you from the prophets that totally shattered that paradigm like icicles being kicked off car.

First from President Kimball:

"Soul mates" are fiction and an illusion; and while every young man and young woman will seek with all diligence and prayerfulness to find a mate with whom life can be most compatible and beautiful, yet it is certain that almost any good man and any good woman can have happiness and a successful marriage if both are willing to pay the price (“Oneness in Marriage,”Ensign, Mar. 1977, 4).

And from Bruce R McConkie:

How do you choose a wife? I’ve heard a lot of young people from Brigham Young University and elsewhere say, “I’ve got to get a feeling of inspiration. I’ve got to get some revelation. I’ve got to fast and pray and get the Lord to manifest to me whom I should marry.” Well, maybe it will be a little shock to you, but never in my life did I ever ask the Lord whom I ought to marry. It never occurred to me to ask him. I went out and found the girl I wanted; she suited me; I evaluated and weighed the proposition, and it just seemed a hundred percent to me as though this ought to be. Now, if I’d done things perfectly, I’d have done some counseling with the Lord, which I didn’t do; but all I did was pray to the Lord and ask for some guidance and direction in connection with the decision that I’d reached. A more perfect thing to have done would have been to counsel with him relative to the decision and get a spiritual confirmation that the conclusion, which I by my agency and faculties had arrived at, was the right one. . . . There’s a fine balance between agency and inspiration. We’re expected to do everything in our power and then to seek an answer from the Lord, a confirming seal that we’ve reached the right conclusion; and sometimes, happily, in addition, we get added truths and knowledge that we hadn’t even supposed. -- Elder Bruce R MocConkie, Angency or Inspiration?

I'll be honest, the responsibility I felt after reading those quotes was Immense. Of course there was at least one person I was seriously interested in when I heard it, and another I really cared about that was seriously interested in me, both of whom I could easily marry.  A fact which was causing me a lot of anguish. And I realized something -- GOD IS NOT GOING TO MAKE THAT DECISION FOR ME. Yes, He will help me not marry a jerk, but ultimately I have to Choose. I get to choose who I'm going to marry, you get to choose who you're going to marry, God hasn't made that decision for any of us.It's so freeing!

But freedom means work. And a lot of it. From the same talk listed above President Kimball said:

Marriage is perhaps the most vital of all the decisions and has the most far-reaching effects, for it has to do not only with immediate happiness, but also with eternal joys. It affects not only the two people involved, but also their families and particularly their children and their children’s children down through the many generations.

President Hinckley said:

Be worthy of the mate you choose. Respect him or her. Give encouragement to him or her. Love your companion with all your heart. This will be the most important decision of your life, the individual whom you marry.

God has trusted us to make that decision. It's "the most important decision of our lives" and He will guide us and direct us, but ultimately it's up to us.  Like everything else in this life it's a learning experience and in the end the decision is not made all at once, when he hands us a ring, but little by little all along the way.

A friend of mine recently returned from a mission and said the only advice her mission president gave her when she left was this: You marry who you date. You Marry. Who. You. Date. When you put a lot of time and energy into creating and strengthening a relationship with someone, you create and strengthen a relationship with that person. Go figure. And 9 times out of 10 you marry someone created and strengthened a strong relationship with. You marry who you date, you see? So be careful how you use your agency because by doing so you're making choices.

That's probably more than enough tautology for now, so I'll apply this back into the rest of life and create a beautiful set up for the last part of this series by ending with another quote from elder McConkie:

Use both agency and prayer. It is not, never has been, and never will be the design and purpose of the Lord—however much we seek him in prayer—to answer all our problems and concerns without struggle and effort on our part. This mortality is a probationary estate. In it we have our agency. We are being tested to see how we will respond in various situations; how we will decide issues; what course we will pursue while we are here walking, not by sight, but by faith. Hence, we are to solve our own problems and then to counsel with the Lord in prayer and receive a spiritual confirmation that our decisions are correct. (“Why the Lord Ordained Prayer,” Ensign, Jan. 1976, 11)