"A young couple, Lisa and John, moved into a new neighborhood. One morning while they were eating breakfast, Lisa looked out the window and watched her next-door neighbor hanging out her wash.
“That laundry’s not clean!” Lisa exclaimed. “Our neighbor doesn’t know how to get clothes clean!”
John looked on but remained silent. Every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry, Lisa would make the same comments. A few weeks later Lisa was surprised to glance out her window and see a nice, clean wash hanging in her neighbor’s yard. She said to her husband, “Look, John—she’s finally learned how to wash correctly! I wonder how she did it.” John replied, “Well, dear, I have the answer for you. You’ll be interested to know that I got up early this morning and washed our windows!” "
President Thomas S. Monson shared this little anecdote in the October 2010 General Conference. I love this! When President Monson gave this talk, his topic was "Charity Never Faileth." Charity is the pure love of Christ. When we have charity, we are willing to look past the dirty windows and see each other as children of God.
One of the blessings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that our dirty windows can be clean. Heavenly Father sent us here to earth and gave us our agency so we could choose. Because we had the ability to choose, Heavenly Father knew that many of us would make incorrect choices. We would ALL make mistakes, therefore dirtying our window.
Remember though, Heavenly Father loves us. He wants us to return to live with Him forever. That is why He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to pay the price for our sins. Christ came to earth and overcame death, both physical death and spiritual death. He overcame physical death in that after we die, we will be resurrected. Our body and our spirit will be reunited again. He overcame spiritual death in that we can be cleansed of our sins and return to live with God again.
The Atonement is real. We are important to God. He loves each of us and He wants us to return to live with Him. We have dirty windows to clean, and I know they can be cleaned through the Atonement of Christ. President Dieter F. Uchtdorf in the October 2011 General Relief Society Broadcast said: "I want to tell you something that I hope you will take in the right way: God is fully aware that you and I are not perfect. Let me add: God is also fully aware that the people you think are perfect are not." None of us are perfect in life and none of us will be, but through the Atonement of Christ, we ultimately can become perfect, even as Jesus Christ is perfect.
