PERFECT Vs IMPERFECT

This is a short anecdote with beautiful insights I came across recently and thought of sharing it with you. It gives a beautiful message for our life. We need to accept our life with all perfections and imperfections, with all joys and sorrows, with all good, uneven and narrow patches. This is our existential reality.

After a long day at work, my mother laid the table and put a plate of sausages and toasts that were very much burnt for my father. I remember waiting to see how he would react. My father, evidently, noticed it, but he took the burn out toasts and simply smiled at mom and asked me about school and the children.

I don’t remember what I actually said to him, but I did notice how he spread butter and marmalade generously and enjoyed the toasts. When I left the table that night, I remember overhearing my mother telling my father how sorry she was for burning the toasts so badly. I will never forget my father’s response:

“Darling, don’t worry about it; actually, now and then I enjoy toasts that are burned.”

Later that night, I went to kiss good night to my father and I asked him if it was true that he liked toasts that are over burned. He hugged me and gave me these reflections:

Mom had had a hard day at work, was very tired and, moreover, a little burned toast does not harm anyone. Life is full of imperfect things and imperfect persons; we must learn to accept the defects and be ready to celebrate the differences among people: it is the best way to build up healthy and lasting relationships.

Burn toasts should never break anyone’s heart. Understanding and tolerance are the foundation of any relationship. Always try to be more loving than what you think to be necessary, because every person, at this time, will be fighting some kind of battle. Everyone has problems and every one is learning to live; and probably life isn’t long enough for us to learn all we need to learn.

The road to happiness isn’t a straight one. There are many turns and twists called MISTAKES; there are traffic lights called FRIENDS, warning lights  called FAMILY, and everything can be achieved if you have: an extra tyre called DECISION, a powerful engine called LOVE, a good insurance called FAITH, in abundance; lots of fuel called PACIENCE, and, above all, an experienced driver called GOD.

Author not known

As I read this anecdote it questioned my own existence. We are created by God not as perfect being, but imperfect, marching towards the perfection. We are earthen vessels, brittle and feeble. Therefore, we need to accept others also as they are, just as we are. Mistakes are part of our journey. But there are traffic lights to light up when it is dark in our lives, warning signals when we are chilled, extra step in when our ‘going go’ punctures, extra-mile fuel in the form of love to speed up our velocity, guaranteed life insurance in the form of theological virtues, above all the experienced driver, Jesus.