How do you know

[homeschoolmom]

[quote name='Norseman82' date='May 18 2005, 10:00 PM'] On what basis do people believe that God has ONE person picked out for everyone? [/quote]
People [i]don't[/i] believe this, do they?

[Nicole8223]

I mean, I don't believe everyone is called to marriage, so in that sense, not everyone has another person that God has planned for them to spend the rest of their life with.

For those who are called to marriage, I do believe God has perfectly planned who is going to be together. So, I guess I kinda believe it.

[franciscanheart]

[quote name='Birgitta Noel' date='May 19 2005, 11:00 AM'] Geetarplayer, you may want to rethink your position, I also know many who have met online, have fallen in love, and married.

LOL, and in the interest of full disclosure, I am one of them.

Let's separate a few things. 1) there are many who meet totally random people online, ie in generic chat areas. This is pretty risky and has a pretty low success rate. Then there 2) there are those who meet on sites that are either dating sites, many are Catholic dating sites, or via sites which promote common interests, ie Phatmass. These tend to have a pretty high success rate.

I cannot speak for others, but I can share my experience. I met my husband, Darin on catholicsingles.com. I was at Michigan State, but studying in London at the time, and he was in Illinois at Bradley U. having just moved out of a religious community with whom he was discerning.

Because I am overweight I always hated meeting people in person and generally was rejected by those I met because I wasn't their ideal, meeting Darin online allowed him to get to know me without judging the physical. Later he did admit that I was a bit heavier than he would have liked, but that he loved all of me But I'm getting ahead of myself....

So, I was in London, and reached a point where the semester closed in on me and told him that he'd have to wait a few weeks til I got back stateside. We were just friends, and in fact I didn't really have much interest, but a few weeks later, there he was again.

We started exchanging emails, and eventually IMs. I began eagerly awaiting his emails that were there for me each morning when I awoke (he was going to early mass and would send them, I was a grad student trying to grab every last second of sleep that I could). We got to know one another more deeply, and I enjoyed our conversations very much. He made me laugh, not just in the LOL sense of cyberspace, but in a real sense. He made my heart and soul smile.

We were falling in love, but neither of us wanted to admit it before we met in person. Being in a high pressure grad program I had no time to date, and had we met in person I wouldn't have given Darin the time of day.

Around September he asked if he could come visit. By the grace of God it was probably my only free weekend of my entire grad career at MSU. We talked on the phone for the first time the night before he came, and exchanged photos, again, I think for the first time. And I did some detective work to see if he was really who he said he was, just to be on the safe side.

When we met in person we were nervous, but that soon subsided. Soon we were talking and acting as if we had known one another for years. He brought the very flowers my Mom had loved when she was dating my Dad. Then he told me that I wrinkled my nose like a bunny rabbit, which was what my paternal Grandfather, whom I had never met, had told my Mom when he nicknamed her "Rabbit"! I knew that this one was special...

That very weekend I met him I told my Mom that this was the man which I was going to marry. And yes, he also made me laugh in person, a lot. In fact, to this day that is one of the things which I love the most, he makes me laugh. One day when we're broke, have no health, no home, nothing, we'll have one another and that laughter and love.

Anyhow, we dated long distance for a year and a half. It wasn't easy, he was a 7 hour drive away and when he did visit we did a lot of sitting in coffee shops while I graded papers. But we persisted and through the grace of God survived those tough times. He proposed just after I graduated and six months later I moved to IL (there's a looooong story there too, but I'll spare you the details for now).

Internet dating is not for everyone, but it can work. You can learn a lot about someone before you even really meet them, ie if you meet them on a Catholic dating site you'll know how they feel about the big issues. Darin knew that I wasn't fully in line with Church teaching when we met, but he persisted out of love and I changed my mind, had a conversion of heart. If you asked him, he'd probably tell you that now I am the one trying to convert him so to speak.

As for internet communication, people have communicated via love letters for centuries, this is just a different form of that. We learned to speak with our minds and souls and not our bodies (though we did struggle with chasitity issues when we were together).

Ummm, I'm sure there are a billion things I am leaving out, but that's ok. Feel free to ask any questions..... [/quote]
:wub:

[Norseman82]

[quote name='Nicole8223' date='May 20 2005, 09:45 AM'] I do believe God has perfectly planned who is going to be together. [/quote]
On what do you base this????

[Nicole8223]

Well, God has a perfect plan for our lives, right? And if He calls us to marriage, I am sure he has planned who He wants us to marry.

[Norseman82]

[quote name='Nicole8223' date='May 20 2005, 09:59 AM'] Well, God has a perfect plan for our lives, right? And if He calls us to marriage, I am sure he has planned who He wants us to marry. [/quote]
Who says He micromanages every detail for us?

I'm a Catholic, not a Calvinist, so I believe in free will.

[Nicole8223]

Sure, I believe in free will, too. But God knows all, and he plans our lives according to His will. Whether or not we follow that is up to us. He has someone planned for me, I believe that. Whether my life follows his plan, is up to me, but either way, there was someone in His plan that was meant to be my husband. (I think I got him, too!)

I'm not stuck in this mindset, so if you have reason to think otherwise, I would be interested to hear it!

[Mrs. Bro. Adam]

God does have a plan for our lives, but that doesn't mean we always follow His plan for our lives.

[Mrs. Bro. Adam]

i.e. I doubt God plans for us to sin, but we do.

[Nicole8223]

Right...that's what I was saying. He definitely has a perfect plan, but we don't always follow it

[Jaime]

[quote name='Norseman82' date='May 20 2005, 10:04 AM'] Who says He micromanages every detail for us?

I'm a Catholic, not a Calvinist, so I believe in free will. [/quote]
To say that God has a "soulmate" intended for us is certainly not out of the realm of possibilities. To say otherwise would be putting restrictions on what God can do.

I'm with Mrs Bro Adam as well. Just because he may have one person picked out, doesn't mean we have to choose that person. Free will is still involved.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

I tend to think that God has a plan which is a responce to our actions, even before we made them. That doesn't make things Calvinist. His knowledge of what we will do and His actions to use our actions for good are not the things which cause us to sin...we do that freely. That God has an intimately designed plan for us is not at odds with free will.

[jmjtina]

this thread just made me think of those dumb purses and shirts.....

Mrs. Kutcher and Mrs. Timberlake.



how lame.

anyway, carry on.

[Q the Ninja]

[quote name='Norseman82' date='May 20 2005, 10:04 AM'] Who says He micromanages every detail for us?

I'm a Catholic, not a Calvinist, so I believe in free will. [/quote]
If it's right, you're only doing it because God gave you the graces, and the only reason you're doing what's right is you chose "yes" to the grace.

[Catholictothecore]

Man, I don't really know how to answer this one.

I think that it has to be based on what's in common, cause once you say I do and all that, there is no going back (not that I think you'd ever truly want to.) If I fall in love, I can only name a few things about who that girl would be. She would be an absolute Roman Catholic whose strongest desire would be to love God through me, as that's what I'd do for her. I hate the mind set that marriage is "settling down;" I think it is more like, two people taking their respective crosses and laying them on top of each other, both carrying both. Combining forces for God's glory. She would be imperfect, but she would be precious to me, and so I'd be able to love her as Christ loves the church, the husbands role in marriage. It would be from to death do we part, and she would at least have told me that she had similar thoughts about me before I asked her, and it would be ME who does the asking!