The love and protection that this man felt for his wife and child was like none I had ever seen before. He made her a warm place in the straw with some extra blankets he had brought and his own cloak. I watched them from the door between the inn and the stable. So the young couple took their donkey and made way to the stable. The girl turned as they left and met my eyes with hers and smiled a smile of thanks that gave me chills. The stable was small and smelled, well, like a stable, but it was dry and warmer than the Bethlehem streets. So I gave them all I had left, the stable where the animals slept. I myself am a father of two girls and I would not have wanted my pregnant daughter to have no place to sleep at night. Then she looked up at me with those eyes that touched my soul and stirred my compassion. When they asked for a room I quickly snapped that there were none left here. When the knock came, I threw open the door and before me stood a very pregnant young girl and her betrothed. When they showed up at my door, I was tired and a little irritated at the travelers seeking a place to stay. It all makes more sense now looking back. And the sparkle they had in their eyes, like they held some sort of huge secret. And the way she looked at him, like he was her protector and yet she was also taking care of him. I have never seen a man so gentle and so caring towards his wife. There were many weary travelers that had come into town but there was something about this couple. I had been booked solid for weeks when the young couple came to town. The shopkeepers, the innkeepers and the tax collectors were ready to make some extra money. When the decree came that all men would have to go to their place of birth to be registered, the buzz immediately began about the money to be made. That time in Bethlehem was busy to say the least. It is the day that heaven came down to my inn.
It is the story of the very first Christmas.
It is a night that almost everyone has heard of. So sit back and relax, let’s take a journey back to Bethlehem. I knew that the woman was ready to deliver the child at any time so I gave them what I had. All I could offer was my stable and so that’s what I did. I was the one that turned them away that night, having no rooms available. She was weary and yet her eyes held a knowing expectation of the glory that was to come. I saw them when they came into Bethlehem. How could the most magnificent and important birth in all of human history take place in such meager and drab surroundings? I was there, I know the story. I t’s amazing to think how a night so seemingly ordinary could be filled with such wonder and adoration.
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