Our barn is actually a nice rust color, but early one morning I noticed that in the sunlight of dawn, it appears quite golden in color. It reminded me of a story that I heard many times in church as a child.

There is a story called “The Golden Windows,” by Laura E. Richards. Every morning, a boy sees a house across the valley from his own home with shining windows made of lustrous gold. One morning, he decides to head out to find the house. After many hours and miles, he reaches the house only to be very disappointed that it really had normal windows after all. As he turns to go home, he discovers from this new perspective that his own house across the valley has also been adorned by the setting sun with windows of shiny gold. He is filled with happiness, and contentedly ventures back home.

It is often easier to see others’ golden windows, assuming that we have none of our own. We may feel envious of people who have some talent, ability or attribute that we find especially alluring, and fret about how much that person has something we believe we lack. Is it difficult to imagine that we also have admirable, sought-after traits? If we find ourselves focusing on feelings of inferiority when we see another person’s “shine,” perhaps we can change our perspective. This person isn’t shining instead of us, but is shining as well as us, only from a different vantage point.