Jimmy was a sad little boy. He got tired easily and people worried about him for this reason. He had to spend a great deal of time in a place that he didn't like being in. His parents told him "It's for your own good, Jimmy.", but that didn't make staying there any more fun. He would find things to do, but the people who worked there would say "Please play elsewhere, Jimmy." or "Don't touch, Jimmy." or "Go back to your room and play, Jimmy.". Jimmy didn't like hearing them say things like that, because it hurt his feelings and anyway, he was BORED, B O R E D , B-O-R-E-D!!
In the daytime, he would look down, out the window and see people and dogs running down the street and he wished he could run. He saw cats walking along the rooftops and he wished he could climb and walk on top of buildings too. He saw pigeons fly by and he wished he could fly.
At night, he would look out the window, but looking up, instead. He saw the stars--how far away they were. A teacher once told him that each star was really a far away sun, and most of those suns had planets around them. There were millions of stars... Billions... TRILLIONS!... of stars out there and nobody had ever visited one! Jimmy thought "If there are about 9 planets around our sun and about a thousand stars close enough to see their planets and only one of them has life on it, let's say 1 out of 10,000... and there's about ten trillion other stars out there we can't see up close, then there could be a billion planets with life on 'em! Jimmy asked his nurse how many planets have life on them and she said "Just one, child. Just one precious, blue jewel in God's crown." Jimmy thought that was a funny way to say it... calling the Earth a jewel in a crown, when it wasn't stuck in anything. it was floating in space. It didn't make sense that God would only make ONE planet with life on it! Why would God make so many stars with planets we can't see or go to. Why, unless He didn't want us to know that we're not alone! Jimmy couldn't prove it, but he was sure there HAD to be other planets with life on them, and some with people! Every night, he thought about these things a long time...
