No room at the inn but joy abounds

Fourteen years ago this week, our airplane landed in Chicago on our flight home from China. I remember how emotional it was to know we were home on American soil after our trip to adopt our first child.

But we weren’t home yet.

We still had to catch a flight to Baltimore. But when we got off the plane, we found out a snowstorm had canceled all the flights to the East Coast.

We were stuck, stranded in Chicago with our toddler who had met us less than two weeks earlier. Suddenly we were scrambling to find a hotel. It was just days before Christmas, my husband was expected back at work, we had medical appointments to keep, and we had no idea when or how we would get home.

But God is always with us.

My father took my collect call from a payphone in the airport and told us we probably weren’t going to fly home that night. Friends we had met on our adoption trip who live outside Chicago helped us find a hotel—and made sure we got there safely. While our toddler played with his father in our hotel room, I sat on hold trying to get us onto a new flight.

That night, as doors shut one after another, I didn’t know how we would get home. It seemed crazy when my husband suggested that maybe we could rent a car. We were sleep-deprived. Our baby had never been in a car seat. It would be a long and unfamiliar drive. What kind of weather would we find in between? But as the hours passed, it seemed like it might be our best—and maybe our only—choice.

We rented a car with a car seat, and John installed it in a frigid, blustery Chicago parking lot. Then we packed up the car, loaded our son into a car seat for the first time, and set off on the long drive home.

I thought it would be a miserable drive. It was difficult to be so tired, so jetlagged, so ready to get home, and yet so far away. But after all the air travel, driving was almost a relief. We were closer every minute, and we were alone, just us, a new family of three. That time together ended up being a gift.

We stopped in South Bend, Indiana, for our son’s first McDonald’s cheeseburger. We let him stretch his little legs at rest stops. We played games and sang in the car. We didn’t worry about all the Goldfish and Cheerios falling on the floor. We didn’t push too hard to get too far. We just enjoyed being together.

During this third week of Advent, as Christmas creeps closer, I find myself remembering that trip home. It was long and tiring, but it was also beautiful and joyful.

I don’t know what Mary and Joseph went through on their journey to Bethlehem, but I like to think they found joy even on that challenging trip that led them to a humble stable. When there was no room at the inn, Mary and Joseph must have trusted that God would find a place for them to welcome Jesus—and he did. Maybe it wasn’t what they expected, but it was what they needed. It became sacred ground.

With Christmas just days away, it can be easy to feel we will never be ready to celebrate the birth of Jesus, especially with all the tasks related to the holiday. But these final days also offer a chance for us to make our own joy, to set aside what doesn’t matter quite so much after all and embrace the gift of love—Love come to earth, God made Man, on Christmas Day.

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