How do you know when you've found the one you're supposed to marry?
I grew up in a family laden with divorce. My parents were divorced, my grandparents were all divorced, and what seemed like the majority of other relatives had been divorced. Divorce was almost just a norm for me as a child. I don't include this as some pity promoting section of this post, but I include it knowing that divorce is very prevalent in our society today and quite honestly, the idea can seem quite heartbreaking and scary. At least for me it did. And I know its the same for several other young adults. I always imagined that when it came time for me to meet "the one" that the Holy Ghost would help me know right away, I'd feel instant peace about whoever I was dating, I would feel an instant assurance of getting married one day, and some whimsical feeling to top it all off. After all, "you will just know" right? Eh, not really. At least not for me, and honestly I would say its not that way for the majority of people. So heres a look into my dating/engagement experience and everything I learned. I hope it helps someone dealing with the same questions!
My Dating/Engagement Experience
What I learned Throughout My Studies
Wanting to make a spiritually sound decision and feeling like I was getting no answers from Heavenly Father, I began an intense journey of studying general conference talks, attending young adult devotionals, rewatching tons of Face to Face events, meeting with my bishop, and counseling with my mission president over the phone. My mission president and his wife are my supreme example of how spiritual, fulfilling, joyful, and long-lasting a marriage can be. Other examples I absolutely adored were stake presidents I had known and their respective wives. And lets be honest, we all know general authorities slay our hearts by the way they talk about their sweet wives. These are the kinds of marriage I envisioned and the kinds of marriage I wanted. So I was searching high and low in gospel centered resources to find some magical formula of how you are supposed to know. Although I never found a magical formula, here's some of the highlights I did find:
1) During a weekly USU institute devotional, an area seventy, Elder Lang, came and spoke to us. The devotional turned into a dating themed discussion and something he said stood out to me. It went something like, "I would be careful about the idea of soulmates. Too often, young people are fooled into the notion that there is some magical, whimsical feeling associated with finding your soulmate.You do not find your soulmate, you create a soulmate in the person you choose."
2) At Elder Uchtdorf's young adult devotional in January, he said that when you are looking forward to your decision making, it can be really hard to connect the dots to know if you're on the right path, but when you look backward, it is a lot easier to see God's hand in your decisions. Just that day, Kaden had told me a little bit about his experience leading up to us dating and I shared mine and it was amazing how much our experiences prepared us for each other. I could connect the dots of God's hand in my decisions looking back a lot easier.
3) I read many many many talks, articles, and scriptures on choosing your eternal companion and watched lots of videos. I have included an intensive list of links below in the order of what I would suggest first:
Ok, this list looks intense, but these are the main articles I read and reread over the period of dating and getting engaged to my sweet boy. I do however have a little word of caution, at least from what I experienced. Some of these talks/articles mention how feelings of anxiety or worry are things to be cautious of. I must come from quite the emotional and anxious species of female because the decision about marriage made me anxious, I'll be honest. Coming from a family full of divorces and wanting nothing more than a joyful, gospel centered marriage, I was a little nervous. Reading these comments about being weary of feelings of anxiety made me even more nervous when it came to my decision to marry Kaden. So take heart and know that its ok if you feel a little anxious about the marriage decision because that just means your normal. However, there is a difference between a feelings of warning from the Spirit and feelings of nervousness based on past experience, so just prayerfully let the Lord help you discern what you're feeling.
To condense my thoughts as much as I can, my take aways from my studies were incredible. The main principle I would like to share from what I learned is that YOU GET TO DECIDE! There is no magical formula of how you know, there is no whimsical feelings to the inspiration you are supposed to feel on the first date, second, third, or twentieth date, and there certainly isn't only one person you could make a joyful marriage with. I learned and now have a stronger testimony that Heavenly Father has not pre-mapped out our life for us and forces us to make choices accordingly. Although I personally do believe He already knows what we will choose, He is not going to make the answers to these decisions known to us before we have sought to make them ourselves.
"You must study it out in your mind, then you must ask me if it be right" (D&C 9:8)
"Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will. For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves." (D&C 58:27-28)
He has created you and prepared you to make intelligent and spiritual decisions. So take confidence in yourself. If you are living by the commandments, partaking of the sacrament regularly, praying every day, and reading your scriptures fervently, YOU WILL BE OK! By this point in your life, you have made good decisions and you know how to continue making them. He has prepared you to do so. Although you may not have full confidence in it, you know how to recognize the promptings of the Holy Ghost. There are few things more beautiful than recognizing Heavenly Father's trust in you as an "agent unto [yourself]". During my time of prayerfully pleading for guidance from my Father in Heaven, I learned that I was asking all the wrong questions. Without realizing it, I wanted Him to make the decisions for me so I knew for sure they were good. I would ask "Am I going to marry Kaden? Should I keep dating Kaden?" when instead I learned that those questions were not His to answer. They were mine to decide. I learned that Heavenly Father is willing now more than ever to guide me in this decision so I started asking questions like, "Is Kaden being honest in his representation of himself to me? Can I trust him? Will our testimonies compliment eachothers' throughout our life? Will he remain active in the church?" This is when I finally started to feel like I was getting some answers. I started to ask Kaden hard questions about anything from his past or any struggles or anything I should know about. I started to really get to know Kaden and asked for my Heavenly Fathers guidance as I did so. I still remember a night of continued confusion and frustration in the lack of revelation I felt like I was getting so I continued to read more talks for some kind of guidance. I remember reading something that said (its probably in one of the talks above, sorry I don't remember which one) Heavenly Father will not confirm your question on a decision until you have made one. He can not confirm a decision you haven't already decided on yet. It goes against the nature of the gift of agency He so mercifully gave us. So YOU MUST DECIDE. You must study it out in your mind, pray about specific questions, pray that you will see things as they really are throughout your relationship, and gauge how you feel about the other person, and then YOU DECIDE. I remember reading this talk and falling to my knees in frustration and saying, "ok Heavenly Father, I don't feel like I have gotten any sure answers and so I am sick of feeling so anxious and confused. I have just decided that I love Kaden with all my heart and I am going to marry him. That's really all I've wanted all along. If this is wrong for me to do, then please stop me somehow, otherwise, I'm marrying my best friend." Almost instantly, I felt a gentle, warm feeling of peace. I wanted to cry and run over to Kaden's apartment across the street and hug him for hours. I finally felt a confirmation from my Heavenly Father. I felt His approval and love and trust that I can make righteous decisions.
As time pressed forward, as we planned on getting engaged, and worked towards our engagement, feelings of worry and doubt still came. Family is the center of God's plan so naturally Satan is going to create opposition in some way. My opposition was fear. Fear of separation, fear of ever losing Kaden, fear of not knowing how to listen to the Spirit's promptings. But in the words of Elder Holland, "You should not hang back on a good thing, you go for a good thing... I wish to encourage every one of us regarding the opposition that so often comes after enlightened decisions have been made, after moments of revelation and conviction have given us a peace and an assurance we thought we would never lose...With any major decision there are cautions and considerations to make, but once there has been illumination, beware the temptation to retreat from a good thing. If it was right when you prayed about it and trusted it and lived for it, it is right now. Don’t give up when the pressure mounts. Certainly don’t give in to that being who is bent on the destruction of your happiness. Face your doubts. Master your fears. “Cast not away therefore your confidence.” Stay the course and see the beauty of life unfold for you."
As I have decided to move forward with faith from the night when I prayed to my loving Father in Heaven and received His approval, I have seen the beauty of life unfold to me. Kneeling across the alter in the temple from my sweetheart was the moment I realized that the promise from my exit interview about knowing whom I should marry "without a doubt" had come to fruition. Kaden is the sweetest man I know and his character continues to prove true to the man I fell in love with during our courtship. He makes me happier than anyone in the world and he is truly my best friend. There's not a thing I wouldn't do for him, because he has already done it all for me. Every day I am grateful for the lessons I learned throughout my time with Kaden, that not only do I get to make my own choices, but that my Heavenly Fathers wants me to and trusts me to do so. Kaden will forever be my choice and I feel so much peace knowing Heavenly Father approves. Every day I will continue to love the choice I have made. It didn't come without fear and anxiety, but it came with an eternity of blessings I will never regret.
Additional Scriptural Gems if You're Interested
"..the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose." (Genesis 6:2)
"...Now, if ye give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed (or a good relationship), if ye do not caste it out by your unbelief (or anxiety over the decision), that ye will resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts;...ye will begin to say within yourselves (before you take it to the Lord)-it must needs be that this is a good seed....for it beginneth to enlarge my soul....but behold, as the seed swelleth, and sprouteth, and beginneth to grow, then you must needs say that the seed is good (or the relationship is good and is always growing)." (Alma 32: 28-30)
"But behold, that which is of God inviteth and enticeth to do good continually; wherefore, everything (or any one) which inviteth and enticeth to do good, and to love God, and to serve him, is inspired of God (or in a relationship is led by God)." (Moroni 7:13)
"And now, my brethren, seeing that ye know the light by which ye may judge...see that ye do not judge wrongfully." (Moroni 7:18) {You know how to make good decisions because of the light of Christ you have acquired over the years}
"I have prepared all things, and have given unto the children of men to be agents unto themselves." (D&C 104:17)
"...ye are free; ye are permitted to act for yourselves; for behold, God hath given unto you a knowledge and he hath made you free." Helaman 14:30 {Pray for further knowledge from Heavenly Father regarding your relationship, not the answer to your decision}
