The Laugh Behind the Tent Door

It was the hottest part of the day, when even the lizards hide in the shade. Abraham sat by his tent door, fanning himself, watching the road shimmer.

And then, three strangers were standing there. Just like that. As if they had always been coming, and only now arrived.

Abraham jumped up. He ran to them, old as he was, and bowed low in the dust. "Please," he said, "don't pass by. Let me bring you water. Let me wash your tired feet. Let me find you something to eat." He hurried everyone. Sarah, knead the bread, quick! A young man, the best little calf! Curds and milk and warm soft loaves, all set out under the tree.

And while the strangers ate, one of them asked, "Where is Sarah, your wife?"

"There," said Abraham. "In the tent."

Sarah was old. Her hair was white, and her husband was older still. For all their long, long life together, they had wanted one thing more than anything in the world: a baby of their own. They had wanted, and waited, and wanted, and the baby never came. Until at last it hurt too much even to say the wish, so Sarah stopped saying it. She tucked the hope away where it couldn't ache her anymore and told herself she was too old, that it was too late.

Maybe you know that feeling, when you have wished and wished, until one day you tell yourself to stop wishing at all.

Then the stranger said, "I will come back to you in the spring. And Sarah will have a son."

Behind the tent door, Sarah heard it. And she laughed. Not a glad laugh. A tired, crinkled, that's-impossible laugh, way down inside herself, where she thought no one could hear. A worn-out body like mine? A baby? After all this time?

But the Lord heard. Of course he did. He is the same God who found Hagar crying by the desert spring, the God who sees what nobody else sees. He hears the laughs we hide.

And he asked the gentlest, biggest question in the whole wide world.

"Why did Sarah laugh? Is anything too hard for the Lord?"

Sarah was frightened then. "I didn't laugh," she said.

"Oh," he answered, kindly, "but you did."

He was not angry. He did not take the promise back. He had come all that way, in the heat of the day, to a tired old woman who had given up hoping, just to say: I have not forgotten you. I have not changed my mind.

In the spring, the baby came. And Sarah laughed again, a brand-new laugh, the kind that spills over into everyone. She named him Isaac, which means he laughs.

Is anything too hard for the Lord? Far down the road, another impossible baby would be born to another woman who could hardly believe the news, and the joy he brought would never wear out. But that is a story for a far-off page. For now, look: an old woman stands in her tent door with a baby on her hip, laughing so hard the camels turn to stare, and everyone who hears her starts laughing too.