By Danny Minton

One of my favorite things growing up was when we would go to downtown Dallas and look at the Christmas displays in the department store windows. The windows would be sprinkled with fake snow, and through the flakes you could view animated characters around a tree, in a sled, or helping Santa. They were windows into another world, a world where every day was Christmas.

Driving the streets during the holidays, you could see Christmas trees of all shapes and sizes. At other times, people left the curtains wide open, and you could see families spending time together. They were portals into life in the ’50s. 

Only a decade before, windows in many places around the world were covered with dark, black cloth to keep the light from enemies. In the United States, white banners with red borders and blue stars hung in windows showing the country how many family members were serving in the military. On some, sewn over the blue star was a golden one representing a family member who was killed while serving. Behind those dark windows lived people whose lives were not like the Christmas windows of the ’50s but lives mixed with hope and fear. 

We never know what goes on behind the windows in people’s lives. Sometimes we sit inside our comfortable homes and enjoy a nice warm drink looking outward at a cold winter day. Other times we peer through our windows, watching heavy rain with wind pushing it sideways, and feel safe, dry, and secure in our easy chairs. 

At the same time, outside, there may be those freezing in the cold because they have no place to stay, desperately looking for a warm place to sleep through the night. Others may be facing storms in their life, sometimes physically and other times mentally. Life on both sides of the window is not always what it looks like from the other side.

A man was sitting having breakfast with his wife next to their dining window. Across the way, they watched a woman hang her clothes on an old clothesline in her backyard. “Someone really needs to show that woman how to clean clothes; they look so dull and dingy.” Her husband told her he’d take care of it. A few days later, they sat down to breakfast again and watched as the woman took her clothes to the line. “Wow,” said the man’s wife. “Did you say something to her?” Why?” her husband asked. Her clothes are so much cleaner. I wonder what she did?” Her husband kept eating and said, “Nothing, I just washed our windows.”

The moral is that we should always be careful when we criticize or judge someone by our own opinions. We never know what they are going through in life, and our perceptions are often biased by how we look at things without first cleaning our own hearts.

There are always two sides of a window. Before passing judgment, stop and think how you would feel if you were on the other side. “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”  Matthew 6:22-23 (NIV2011)

Danny Minton, a member of Southern Hills Church of Christ, is a hospital chaplain