One benefit of sleeping outside is the opportunity to look at the stars each night.  This past week, while I was in Hadjer Hadiid, I wasn’t falling asleep.  The stars were magnificent and easily visible.  I’m not sure why, but I figured I would start counting them.  As I arrived in the twenties, having not even moved an inch across the sky, I just started laughing.  There was no way my counting was going to produce fruit, in terms of an answer to the question of how many stars were in the sky.  There are too many to count.  It made me wonder if Abram was giddy and laughed when God brought him outside and said:

“Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.  So shall your offspring be.” (Genesis 15:5)

Abraham had just finished responding to God about the likelihood of his receiving “a great reward”, as God had promised, since “I continue childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus” (Genesis 15:2).  God’s words about the stars were no less innumerably ridiculous than in chapter 13, when He told Abram that His descendants would be like the dust of the earth.  But Abram’s eyes had clouded his sight and this time God granted faith to see his descendants and he believed God.

Sometimes, my eyes cloud my sight.  After three miscarriages, I couldn’t ever imagine giving birth to a child again.  After years of upheaval and chaos, I can’t fathom peace and stability.  In a place of darkness, I don’t see light.  But the light IS shining, peace IS abiding, and there ARE descendants.

I just need faith to see.