LIFE CONTRASTS
Life is an unpredictable adventure
of tests and triumphs, of battles won and lost, of laughter and tears, of
heartbreak and happiness.
Notwithstanding this, the wise come to realize that every single moment
of life is precious, its delights and disasters, its joys and its sorrows. Yesterday, I read a fictional story that
speaks so eloquently of the ‘see-saw’ nature of the human experience.
A young man once stood on a
street corner, opened his coat and cried out, “Look at my heart, look at my perfect
heart!” A large crowd soon gathered,
impressed by the physical condition and contours of his perfect heart. They stood in awe of a human heart that seemed
to be devoid of blemishes – perfect and complete in every way.
An elderly man stopped to see what the commotion was all about. When he heard the younger man proudly proclaiming
his perfect heart, the older man pushed his way to the front to get a closer
look. But when he saw the young man’s
heart he gently scolded him. “Son,
that’s not a perfect heart. If you want
to see a perfect heart you need to see mine.” With that the old man opened his coat and
revealed an aging, knotted and disfigured heart. It was loaded with bumps and bruises, and pieces
of it were cracked and broken.
The crowd just laughed at the sight of it, but the old man raised
his hand patiently and began to speak.
“See this bump” he said. “That’s
when I met my first love. Oh, how the
sun shone that day, how bright the colors of the leaves, how sweet the singing
of birds in the trees. What a memorable
moment! Ah, but see this hole? That’s when my first love and I broke up. It pained me then and it pains me still. But that hole once ran much deeper. The years have managed to fill it in a lot.”
“See this bump, son. That’s when I met the woman who became my wife. Oh, what a wonderful life we had – year after
year of shared companionship, love and laughter, tears and joy. This scratch here is when we had a blazing
argument that almost ended our marriage, but we made up and moved on. Over here, a piece of my heart has broken; this
is when she passed away. Oh the ache of
it! Yes, it still aches, even today, for
she took part of my heart with her to the grave. But I trust she will return it to me someday.”
“Ah, but here’s an earlier
bump. It’s when we began our family. See the hole beside it? That’s when we learned we could not bear our
own children. How painful a reality to
live with, how hard it was to accept. But
the blessed bump beside it is when we met our adopted daughter, a wonderful
child we loved and raised as our own. And
yes, there are scratches and dents around that beautiful bump – the times we fussed
and fumed. But always we learned to
forgive, so this bump is bigger and stronger.”
The old man went on to describe many other bumps and holes and
scratches on his heart. When he finished
his life story, the crowd grew hushed and silent. “You see, son” he said, turning to the young
man with the unblemished heart, “yours is not a perfect heart, for it has not
yet been fully tested. It has not yet been
touched by tears of joy and sorrow, love and pain, hardship and celebration. Only when you have experienced these inevitable
ups-and-downs of life will you be able to look upon a gnarled and battered
heart like mine and see it as a perfect heart.”
Indeed, the monumental contrasts
of life make it marvelous and memorable.
“My brethren, count it all
joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith
produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete,
lacking nothing.” (James 1:2-4)
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