There seems to be a belief today that the idea of there being a person created to be your other half doesn’t exist: “There are many people out there suited to you and you just have to choose one that you like”. While this may be true and work for many people, I certainly don’t want to ‘throw the baby out with the bath water’ as the saying goes.
Watching the movie Jane Eyre recently, I was moved again at the strength of the power of love in the story. I had read the book many years ago, but the reminder of the story showed me just how far we, as a society, have drifted away from the idea that our God is big enough to create and predestine us to meet our soulmate and so become ‘one’.
Jayne Eyre – a quick run-down
Here is a quick run-down of the story, and I mean quick because it is a very long book! The main points: Jane’s parents die and leave her to the care of relatives who reject her and put her in a girl’s home. She has a very difficult life growing up and eventually finds employment as a governess at Mr Rochester’s estate. Despite her poor position in life, and Mr Rochester’s pick of wealthy beautiful women, the two have a heart connection which cannot be denied.
“I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you – especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous channel, and two hundred miles or so of land some broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I’ve a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly.” —Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre (Mr Rochester)
Jayne is driven away through unfortunate events and finds employment elsewhere but suffers greatly at the separation. On realising where her heart belongs, she travels back to the estate, only to find a great fire has occurred and Mr Rochester is now blind. Without saying anything (as the movie shows), she approaches him as he sits bereft by a tree, his heart recognises her presence and they declare their love for each other. The two are together again, as two complete souls.
Life is stranger than fiction
I know this is a “soppy love story”, but real life is often stranger than fiction. When I was 15, I went to a Bible camp. By the time I came home, I knew that my soul had met my soulmate, and I told my mum that I had met the man I was going to marry. We married three years later.
I have friends and relatives that have had similar experiences, living opposite sides of the country and meeting in one place and ‘knowing’. Others have realised later into their friendships or courting, but still had the unmistakable ‘knowing’ that this was ‘the one’.
For some, everything on their list of things to look for in a spouse was ticked, but the heart connection confirmed it. Many stories happened in the most unlikely of places.
Have we as a society lost the wonder and amazement of God’s creation of romance and two souls becoming one? Years ago, when I was studying, we were told that words like ‘soul’ and ‘spirit’ were shunned in literature now, and not popular. But in doing this, have we allowed popular culture to dismiss the miracle of love?
Jesus says in Matthew chapter 19 verses 4-6: “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So, they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
Notice he says, “what God has joined together”?
Can we trust God with our future spouse?
If God knew us before we were born and predestined us, if he knew every day of our lives before we stepped one out, if he knows every hair on our heads, then if we ask, and believe that he holds our future in his hands, is he not able to bring ‘the one’ even from the most obscure place on the other side of the world, into the same space where our souls recognise each other and never again can be separate?
Even author, Charlotte Bronte, had her views on how great God is in the presence of romance:
“We know that God is everywhere; but certainly we feel His presence most when His works are on the grandest scale spread before us; and it is in the unclouded night-sky, where His worlds wheel their silent course, that we read clearest His infinitude, His omnipotence, His omnipresence.” —Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
Did not God create Adam and Eve to be together? Abraham and Sarah; Isaac and Rebekah; Jacob and Rachel; Boaz and Ruth; Elkanah and Hannah? These relationships were not without trouble but, had eternal purpose. It is important to mention that, if you are going to live your life with someone—and that could be a very long time together—you want to make sure it’s the right someone. Life’s trials will be easier to endure with ‘the one’ than someone that felt good at the time.
So, I say to the young people of today and to those who are looking for ‘the one’— pray, pray, pray, and trust God to handle it. Then get on with things, because one day God might just surprise you when you least expect it.
Rebecca and her husband have four children and live on the Sunshine Coast, Australia. Rebecca writes for various publications including print, online and commercial. She is the author of two books: ‘First to Forty’ and ‘Pizza and Choir’. For more information you can find Rebecca at: http://www.rebeccamoore.life, Facebook: Rebecca Moore - Author, Instagram: rebeccamoore_author
Rebecca Moore's previous articles may be viewed at www.pressserviceinternational.org/rebecca-moore.html