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[eternal-echoes]

“It is often said that a person's relationship with God begins where their relationship with their dad ends. This is not always the case, but if you have a father who is abusive, absent, or impossible to please, it's easy to impose these qualities onto your idea of God. If you feel as if your earthly father is always disappointed in you or is emotionally unavailable, it becomes difficult to envision a God who loves you unconditionally and is closer to you than your own breath. Some may ask, "How am I supposed to trust a God who I don't see when I can't even trust the people I do see? If God is love, and I don't believe in love any more, how am I supposed to believe in God?"

Your feelings about God are not the measure of His nearness to you. His love does not need to be earned. It is a gift. Try to wrap your mind around this: Not only does God love you, He likes you.”

-Jason and Crystalina Evert, How to Find Your Soulmate Without Losing Your Soul

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Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence (Italy)

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“The Hebrew word for soulmate is b'shert. A Jewish woman once explained to me that she understood the word to mean that one's soulmate is only visible to the person who is living in the will of God. You could live next door to him your whole life and never know it, unless you were living as God was calling you to live.

How do you conform your life to His will? In the Gospel of Matthew, our Lord says, "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well” (Matthew 6:33). However human the temptation may be, we can't say, "Okay, God. If I need to put you first in my life in order to get what I want, then I hereby declare you first. Now can I have what I want?" It doesn't work like that.

Spiritual maturity emerges only through patient suffering. Seasons of waiting, wondering, and hoping may need to pass by as you cling to Him in faith, allowing Him to shape your hopes and even your very desires.”

-Jason and Crystalina Evert, How to Find Your Soulmate Without Losing Your Soul

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🌟Happy 1 Advent everyone ✨

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“If you are frustrated with God because you haven't found your soulmate, perhaps there's a reason why the time hasn't come. Sometimes we make a god out of human love, and the idol needs to be broken. Human love is a beautiful thing to desire and to find. The dream of love does not need to be abandoned. But when it becomes the center of our longings, the cause of our joy or despair, and the ruler of our hearts, it needs to be handed over to God, who alone can fulfill our deepest desires.

Because the human heart is made for love, we seek it tirelessly. But perhaps we would encounter it more quickly if we let it find us. What we mean is this: You will become more attractive to the person God has in mind for you when you become the woman that God is calling you to be.”

-Jason and Crystalina Evert, How to Find Your Soulmate Without Losing Your Soul

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poema de amor | víctor m. alonso

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“Therefore, keep your eyes on heaven rather than earth. Odds are, we're more likely to miss "the one" if we're constantly trying to find him. We're paying more attention to what we want than to what God wants. Trust us: You won't miss "the one" if you keep your eyes on Christ. He won't let it happen. But if your focus is not on God, then you're guaranteed to waste a lot of time with guys who aren't meant for you. When we don't trust God, we often take matters into our own hands. It's then that we become our own worst enemies. When we begin to view God as an obstacle to our deepest longings, we can be sure that we're a long way from finding them.

Perhaps you have assumed that God would lead you away from guys, just as guys typically lead you away from God. It isn't supposed to be this way. God shouldn't be viewed as a third wheel or an obtrusive guest in a relationship. He is the source of love. To the degree that a woman loves God, she is capable of loving a man. And to the degree that she loves a guy, she will lead him closer to heaven. When couples discover that God alone can perfect their human love, they'll find themselves closer to each other than ever before.”

-Jason and Crystalina Evert, How to Find Your Soulmate Without Losing Your Soul

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“Have you ever had a girlfriend who was in a terrible relationship? Despite the fact that you and all of your friends begged her to open her eyes and get out, she stayed put. She'd even get upset at you for pointing out the obvious problems, or accuse you of jealousy. You didn't want her to break up because you were jealous or because you wanted her to obey a list of your rules. You just wanted what was best for her. You probably watched her make numerous poor choices, while wringing your hands in frustration, wishing she would trust you.

In the same way, God does not get angry at us because we aren't following His rules. He wants to see us happy and He knows what will ultimately bring us joy or despair. There's a tendency in all of us to believe: "God is out to get me. He's holding out on me. He's stingy." But as we look within our own hearts and begin to spend more time in prayer, we discover that we are the ones who are being stingy with Him. If only we would give everything to God, we would realize how generous He has been trying to be toward us all along. Because of our stubbornness, we often cling to what we don't really want because we doubt that anything better exists.

Such a distrustful disposition must be surrendered. Instead of seeing obedience as something that requires our submission and God's domination, we need to see that our obedience to God is an expression of loving trust and abandonment. Divine laws are created by love and should be obeyed in love.”

-Jason and Crystalina Evert, How to Find Your Soulmate Without Losing Your Soul

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“dying nature” by mersad čomaga - CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

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Twilight and Yor saying “no” to a polyamorous relationship.

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When depressing thoughts start entering your mind

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“A life of happiness is not based upon "Thou shalt nots." Jesus Christ did not die on a cross in order to give us more rules to follow. He died in order to save us and to obtain for us the graces necessary to love as we were created to love. Instead of thinking of God as a law-giver who sits aloof upon a throne waiting to judge you, let go of these ideas for a moment. Indeed, God has given us laws. He will be our judge. But in the end we will be judged by a God who is love, on our willingness to reflect His love.”

-Jason and Crystalina Evert, How to Find Your Soulmate Without Losing Your Soul

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“God's idea of spirituality is not something that takes up an hour of our lives on Sunday. He longs for a relationship with each of us that will permeate and transform the way we approach every aspect of life. This includes our work, our studies, and especially our relationships. Because of this, the life of a Christian woman ought to be an expression of her love for God. The same goes with how she uses her body. In a sense, purity is like trusting God with your body. It shows that you will wait patiently for the time God has appointed for you to receive a spouse from Him. In the meantime, you will not run ahead and grasp at the pleasures of marriage.”

-Jason and Crystalina Evert, How to Find Your Soulmate Without Losing Your Soul

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In the coming weeks there are going to be a lot of quotes from Jason and Crystalina Evert’s book How To Find Your Soulmate Without Losing Your Soul posted on here. I tried as much as possible to add context even though it led to some of the quotes being a big block of texts. There might be still confusing because the whole book itself had a wealth of wisdom it’s hard to capture all of them especially since the writers would often use examples to make a point. And there are times when they would use a term differently than how the secular world sees it. For example, the word “purity” is usually understood as being synonymous with “virginity.” But Jason and Crystalina emphasize that in the Christian perspective, that’s not necessarily the case. Virgins who masturbate to porn are not pure while people who had a promiscuous past but have since repented of them and are now leading a chaste life are very pure (i.e. St. Mary Magdalene and St. Augustine). So if there are anything that seems confusing to you, feel free to ask me any questions and I’ll see if I can provide a bigger context from the book.