The Window on the Way

The other day I packed up eight years of life and moved out of our home in St. Louis. It was a beautiful old house, nearly a hundred years old—which meant it had character. It also meant that something was usually breaking.

I won’t miss that.

But I will miss the old window beside the front door.

It was from the 1930s, framed in iron and filled with thick, textured glass. The glass was clear, but you couldn’t see clearly through it. You could see light and color. Shapes and shadows. Children playing in the yard. Neighbors passing by. Autumn burning red and gold, winter turning everything white, and eventually—mercifully—the first green of spring.

You could see enough to know there was a world out there, but not enough to make it all out.

When my family first moved into that house, my life felt a little like that glass.

Blurry.

I couldn’t see the church we would plant just as COVID shut down the world, or the heartbreak of closing it a few years later. I couldn’t see myself questioning a calling that had shaped most of my adult life and then discovering new ways to live it. I couldn’t see two little girls becoming the particular young women they have become. I couldn’t see the meals and laughter, arguments and slammed doors, friendships and failures, beginnings and endings.

And I certainly couldn’t see the morning when that old window blinked red and white with ambulance lights the morning my former wife had collapsed upstairs and lay dying.

They couldn’t save her.

And I couldn’t see that coming either.

And now I’ve looked through that window for the last time.

I keep thinking about Paul’s words:

For now we see through a glass, darkly.

1 Corinthians 13:12

Ain’t that the truth?

Most of us spend our lives trying to see through the glass.

What does this mean? Where is my life going? Where is God in this? What am I supposed to do now?

We want clarity.

But much of life remains blurry.

And then along comes Jesus, continually inviting people to look again.

At seeds and birds. Bread and weeds. Sheep and coins. Children and strangers.

Ordinary things.

The Kingdom of God is like...

Jesus was giving people eyes to see what God was doing right in front of them. Because the Kingdom isn’t merely somewhere beyond the glass. In Jesus, the Kingdom has come near. The King is here.

And once you believe that, you start looking at your own life differently. I know I have.

Looking back through the window of those eight years, I can see things now that I couldn’t see while I was living them. God was unveiling His Kingdom in daughters growing up and food around a table. In friendship and failure. In laughter and regret. In work that flourished and work that didn’t. And yes, even in grief.

Not everything that happened was good. I didn’t understand everything I saw coming or going through that window then, and I still don’t.

The glass is still dark. But I’m learning to see. I’m still reading life through the glass darkly, yet the stories that have become my story are helping me notice something I’ve often missed.

Sometimes we need to wipe away some grime. Sometimes we need to open the window and let in some light and fresh air.

That is much of what storytelling, teaching, and soul care can do. They help us see.

But seeing isn’t the end. Because that old window stood beside a door. And eventually we have to open it and step into the reality of life and the Kingdom with courage.

The earliest followers of Jesus were called followers of the Way, because Jesus didn’t simply invite people to see and understand the Kingdom. He invited them to enter it.

Follow me.

Which means eventually we have to step through the door into the life God has actually given us.

Love this person. Forgive. Grieve. Create. Serve. Begin again. Tell the truth. Change. Receive grace. Take the next faithful step.

That’s the Way.

And that’s Windows on the Way.

These are stories from my life, but my life isn’t the point. Sometimes looking through someone else’s window helps us see through our own.

Maybe one of my stories will help you recognize some grace you missed, discover meaning in something you thought was meaningless, or notice the Kingdom breaking into an ordinary day.

Maybe we’ll open a window together. And then, when we have seen what we can see, perhaps we’ll have the courage to open the door and enter in. Because God is unveiling His Kingdom to us, in us, and through the lives we are already living.

The glass may still be blurry. But there is light out there. And the door is right beside us.

See the Story. Find Meaning. Walk the Way.