I write this question with a broken heart. I am wondering how, in Heaven, God will wipe away tears over lost romantic relationships. We are told that there is no marriage in heaven. God created the beautiful feelings, and deep emotional and physical bond between a man and woman. As humans we have only known them in a sinful world, and yet they are still so strong and can create immense joy, or heartbreak if things do not work out. My heart goes out to people who go through divorce if their spouse chooses it against their will. How is that void, how are those tears wiped away in heaven if there is (apparently) no expression of romantic intimacy?
I realize it points to a relationship with Christ and His bride, yet there must be more to this. I understand that being with Christ will be amazing, and that this is a temporal life. At the very beginning of creation God created a partner for the man, and He gave them pleasurable work to do in taking care of the Garden. The joy of the humans was not to simply be in God’s presence, they were made for each other, and given joyful tasks to do. How can it be that God would take something so amazing, and something we have only known in a fallen state, and discontinue it?
I can sympathize with your situation, but I’ll offer you these two things to think about. First, and most important, God has promised that we’ll experience no mourning or pain in the millennium and that we won’t remember the things of this world, nor will they come to mind. If we feel any regret or sense of loss over past romantic relationships, those promises can’t come true.
Second, the special relationship between man and wife served a specific purpose in this world that will no longer be pertinent in the next one, and that’s procreation (Genesis 1:28). The redeemed Church will live eternally and will have no need for procreation. Jesus said we’ll be like the angels in that regard (Matt. 22:30).
When you consider these two things together, you have to conclude that God has something even better in store for us. We don’t know what it is or how it will work. We just know that in every way it’ll be better than anything we’ve ever experienced. Paul wrote that no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him. ( 1 Cor. 2:9) The Millennium is not a time for taking away. It’s a time for receiving all we could ever ask or imagine, and even more.