Seeing the world through the window of grace changes everything.
Last weekend, I popped into my daughter’s room and caught her sitting on her floor and looking out her window. She commented on how beautiful the sky was. I had to agree. The sky was a stunning color of blue that day. She also commented on how much she enjoys looking out her window and how there were spiders that had made disgusting webs that were obscuring her view.
She was right. There were some yucky spiders, and eggs, and her window was dirty. I went and fetched my hubby and explained her predicament. We have double windows that are very difficult to get to and clean, but we got the vacuum cleaner and he removed the spiders and cleaned her windows.
The difference was amazing. It was like her window was 3D, all of a sudden. All we did was remove the webs and clean them. Unfortunately for my sweet hubby, that made me want to clean our bedroom windows too. They actually had mold growing on them and at two floors up, were also very difficult to clean.
But, we cleaned them too and again, I was amazed at the difference, as the light came streaming through. How had I allowed them to get so dirty to start off with?
I thought a lot about those windows over these next couple of days. I thought about how the way we see the world around us can sometimes be covered by webs and a dirty haze of our life experiences.
If we have been hurt in relationships in the past, we may be tempted to avoid relationships, whatever kind they may be, because that lasting haze has made us see them all as harmful. If we have been hurt by a church in the past, we may write off all churches as judgemental, or hurtful.
We can sometimes allow different disappointments that may have happened to us over the years, to slowly build up and negatively affect how we see community in general, or maybe even how we see the world as a whole. We may not even be aware of it.
We get used to viewing the world through that dirty haze of pain, guilt, anger, and disillusionment.
But, then there’s Jesus. Those four words have the capability to wipe everything clean and make the world sparkle. Sometimes it’s all of a sudden, like our window cleaning last weekend. We reach for Jesus and the entire world appears to be in Technicolor.
Sometimes, it takes a little more time. Sometimes we need to spend some time, leaning into Him while truly learning to embrace forgiveness, peace and joy, while He strips off the haze and tears down the webs, a little bit at the time.
Either way, when we choose to walk closely with Jesus and to look at the world through the window of grace, the beauty is breathtaking. Sometimes I need reminding. Perhaps you do too.
Have an awesome day!
Wendy 🙂