So Many Stars!

It is easy to forget, when one lives in the city, how many stars are actually visible. I was astounded, after years in the city, with no camping, when we first moved to the country. Up in the mountains, the first night, I looked up, and it was so startling that I actually lost my balance! For very close over me, like a bowl, were so many stars, they were countless. It was halfway between looking through a screen, and a colander. I have not found the words to describe so many stars. I had lived in a cloudy, rainy city for over forty years! I stayed there, to be close to the medical facilities my fragile children needed. Now, their earthly time is done. I loved these children more than I could ever explain. I took all of my children camping as frequently as possible, so they could at least SEE the beauty of the country I had grown up with.

One of the first thoughts I had, looking up that night, was how truly omnipotent God is, to have created them all. It made me feel very small and insignificant, as only a speck on earth, with all these huge stars around me. I felt like an ant in an acre of dinosaurs.

Certainly part of the reason God made the stars, was to illustrate the concept of "countless." Many times, the Bible uses the stars, to explain this. Everywhere we look, we can see the wonder of God's power. Perhaps He also put them there to remind us of his omnipotence.

* O LORD, God of our fathers, are you not the God who is in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. Power and might are in your hand. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? Psalm 8:3,4

This verse never had any personal impact on me, until the first night in the country, and more stars than I could believe were really there. I certainly comprehend it now.