Glass houses is from a famous idiom, “people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”

We’ll be ignoring the fact that, yes, throwing a stone at a glass house does sound deliciously thrilling, but I do not promote vandalism.

Glass houses.

Imagine a place where any creature, big or small, could look at you and see all of you; your past, your mistakes, your struggles, your secrets, and your lies. And a place where you could see into everyone else’s dark place.

At church, our pastor did something so bluntly intelligent that I can’t believe I was shocked. He named the date. “Today is October 5th, 2014. Everyone think back to last year, October 5th, 2013. If you’ve had a problem since then, I want you to raise your hand.”

It was stupid of me to look around and be surprised that every church member in attendance had a hand in the air. But this is the way we are.

Too often, we think we’re the only one who has problems. The cliche, no one understands!

I started a bible study based on this. A safe place for girls to come together and talk about problems and issues and find out – shocker – that we’re all going through the same things!

There is nothing new under the sun.

It’s mathematically impossible, with how many people living on this earth, that you have unique issues all your own. You’re not alone.

Accept your problems, don’t hide them. More than 50 percent of the employed dislike their jobs. Money issues are always there. Relationships are tough.

You don’t have to pretend to feel like a million bucks, and you don’t have to sit around crying about how no one understands.

We’re all so quick to judge, it’s absolutely ridiculous. When someone’s one little slip-up comes to light, it’s suddenly sideways glances and whispers behind flat hands.

But what if your slip-ups were made known too? Would you be so quick to point and criticize?

What happens is we get so into ourselves and our problems that we hide and hide, and then we put others down to make us feel better.

It’s insecurity.

This glass house idea..

If we were all glass houses and knew everything about each other, would we judge? I think we’d want to, but I think we’d also be humbled every time someone looked back into our house.

Would we be kinder if we knew what everyone else was going through? I think so.

Would we be as critical if the world knew our dirty little secrets? I think not.

People are petty. I’m petty. You’re petty. We all want to be in first place, but the Bible says “the first shall be last.” We all want to be stupid and win a competition that doesn’t exist.

Glass houses, guys. Stop it. Stop being petty and judgmental. You know your secrets and everyone has the exact same ones. You know your problems, so you know how to help others with their problems.

Be kind.

Because in the end, glass houses are fragile. And if we’re being honest, we really don’t want to hurt each other.