SoulMates

Everybody Wants One

Romeo and Juliet committed suicide rather than live apart. Jack went down with the Titanic so Rose could live………both true love for sure. But that’s nothing compared to a prison visit.

You are head over heels when you love someone enough to visit them in prison!

Visitation just isn’t for the faint of heart! It’s sort of like checking into prison yourself and will for sure make you feel like a criminal. You could be a ninety-eight-year-old invalid, and they would suspect you of smuggling contraband in your wheelchair tires. No doubt it’s easier to get past the TSA than into a prison visitation room. Some of the lame-brained reasons they deny admission include metal in women’s bras. Like, if your bra has metal clasps you can’t go in. Now who’s going to go into a men’s prison with no bra? My personal favorite, no stretchy leggings. Huh? Now I would have thought stretchy leggings would be the kind of pants that they would prefer you wear. Maybe I’m a little slow, but isn’t it going to be kind of obvious if your smuggling something inside stretchy pants?

Inmates had it even worse. You wait around for them to call you then get strip searched coming and going. Calling it a visitation center is generous since it was nothing but one big room with chairs facing each other so you could sit knee to knee with your family. They had a play area for kids and vending machines against one wall.

And these weren’t just any vending machines. The lore of those things was legendary amongst the inmates. Some were just your run of the mill Coke and Pepsi, but the infamous one that inmates whispered about rested right between them, proudly dispensing hamburgers and hot dogs fresh off the grill. Ok, that last part might be rumor. But you would think Five Guys was cooking them onsite the ways stories of their delectability were discussed between inmates. Try to think of the last place you saw a vending machine for hamburgers and hot dogs?

My poor mother had more than one altercation with that vending machine. I really can’t blame her since most of us don’t know our way around vending machines that serve hamburgers and hot dogs. I shudder to think how long those burgers had been in there. Kind of speaks to the quality of prison food, right?

Regardless, visits were always a good time and it means a lot when people take the time to come visit. And most of the time the visiting rooms were full. There were always a plenty of fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, daughters, and sons…..but not many wives.

I always wondered where the soulmates were.   

Have you found your soulmate? Not to cast doubt in any way but are you sure? Sometimes you never know until hard things happen. Like prison. My marriage didn’t survive it.

I Googled soulmate and wasn’t prepared for the avalanche of information. And opinions. Some not close to my definition and some I didn’t even understand. Like what’s a twin flame? And who wants to be their own soulmate?

Chat GPT said that a soulmate is often defined as a person with whom one has a deep, natural affinity, connection, or bond. This relationship transcends mere friendship or romantic involvement; it encompasses emotional, spiritual, and sometimes even intellectual compatibility. Many believe that soulmates are individuals who complement each other perfectly and share a profound understanding, allowing them to communicate and relate on a level that feels instinctive and effortless. The concept can be interpreted in various ways, including the idea that soulmates are meant to meet in this lifetime for mutual growth and support.

I can get behind that definition a little bit. At the very least I understand it. One thing is for sure: 

Everybody wants one!

But when I thought about this subject, I reasoned that surely you have to give to get, right? The entire idea behind soulmate is a selfless union between two. Where do you learn to be that selfless person that makes up your half? Even if you understand the requirements intellectually, how in the world do you live it?

The world has so twisted and distorted what we think love should be, how are we supposed to even recognize true love. I don’t believe you can. I think sin has so corrupted us that we have to be taught again what love is. And there’s no better place to start than at the beginning. The original love…

I’ve come to believe that if Jesus isn’t your first love, your other loves will pay for it. They will pay in a thousand small and large ways. There is something about that relationship with Jesus that changes all your other relationships. That original love that you were created for enables those other selfless loves. 

I have found a great amount of freedom in being in love with Jesus. I cannot say it’s always easy, but He is always there for me. I know He is for me, and that gives me confidence in dealing with people who might not particularly care for me or about me. But in the strangest turn of events…….there aren’t many of those. The world may not always like what I stand for but amazingly, other people do actually they seem to care for me. Actually, it’s not me they like, it’s the one who lives inside me.

It’s just another in a long line of differences since Jesus came into my life. Maybe people care more for me now because care so much more for them. Talk about changes, this from a guy that used to think of himself as a card-carrying misanthrope. That’s just the Holy Spirit for you. But isn’t that what scripture tells us, that we are His example in this world of what life with Him looks like… can be like! In this teetering broken place, everyone is looking for that one thing that will complete them. Their soulmate. Maybe subconsciously their seeing the answer in us. Maybe everyday your life sprinkles seeds, waiting for God to make them grow.

Right or wrong, that’s my two cents worth. Not wrong though!

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