Sweet love
stories can inspire romance even if they aren't
necessarily about romantic love. Just reading something
about true love of any kind can make you feel so
appreciative of the love in your life. This is a
very beautiful story defining the true beauty of love.
We have no idea who wrote it but it's such a pretty
story that we decided to include it. Should whomever
wrote it come forth and object to it's use, we will
gladly remove it or give credit to the author.
The Perfect
Heart
One day a
young man was standing in the middle of the town
proclaiming that he had the most beautiful heart in the
whole valley. A large crowd gathered and they all
admired his heart for it was perfect. There was not a
mark or a flaw in it. Yes, they all agreed it
truly was the most beautiful heart they had ever seen.
The young man was very proud and boasted more loudly
about his beautiful heart.
Suddenly, an old man appeared at the front of the crowd
and said, "Why your heart is not nearly as
beautiful as mine." The crowd and the young man
looked at the old man's heart. It was beating
strongly, but full of scars, it had places where pieces
had been removed and other pieces put in, but they
didn't fit quite right and there were several jagged
edges. In fact, in some places, there were deep gouges
where whole pieces were missing. The people stared.
They thought, "How can he say his heart is more
beautiful?"
The young man looked at the old man's heart and saw its
state and laughed. "You must be joking," he said.
"Compare your heart with mine, mine is perfect and yours
is a mess of scars and tears." "Yes," said the old man,
"yours is perfect looking but I would never trade with
you. You see, every scar represents a person to
whom I have given my love. I tear out a piece of
my heart and give it to them, and often they give me a
piece of their heart which fits into the empty place in
my heart, but because the pieces aren't exact, I have
some rough edges, which I cherish, because they remind
me of the love we shared."
"Sometimes I have given pieces of my heart away, and the
other person hasn't returned a piece of his heart to me.
These are the empty gouges -- giving love is taking a
chance. Although these gouges are painful, they stay
open, reminding me of the love I have for these people
too, and I hope someday they may return and fill the
space I have waiting. So now do you see what true
beauty is?"
The young man stood silently with tears running down his
cheeks. He walked up to the old man, reached into
his perfect young and beautiful heart, and ripped a
piece out. He offered it to the old man with
trembling hands. The old man took his offering,
placed it in his heart and then took a piece from his
old scarred heart and placed it in the wound in the
young man's heart. I t fit, but not perfectly, as
there were some jagged edges. The young man looked
at his heart, not perfect anymore but more beautiful
than ever, since love from the old man's heart flowed
into his. They embraced and walked away side by side.
~Author Unknown
