No Room at the Inn

As director of the women's shelter, Amy had enough to do on Christmas Eve even before the woman turned up with her two children. Temperatures in normally balmy New Orleans had dropped below freezing, and a cold, damp wind blew in from the Gulf. The unseasonable weather brought large numbers of homeless people seeking food and housing. Turning some of them out into that weather at Christmas time seemed doubly hard.

The season had also produced the usual volunteers, filled with Christmas spirit and needing assignments. Amy's hectic morning included steering those workers toward preparing tomorrow's big dinner. She had to dance out of the way of people setting up tables. And, no, she didn't know where there was another soup ladle.  

Amy had spent the previous day finding spaces for women and children. Ultimately, she had resorted to moving the Christmas tree outside to make room for another bed. She only hoped the fire marshal wouldn't make an unexpected call.

She clung to the thought of home to get her through the day. There would be a family meal, a hot shower, and a quiet reading of the Nativity story before her young son's bedtime.

Nowhere to go

In the noontime rush a well-dressed young woman approached with two children, a boy of nine and a girl of twelve. The woman's eyes glistened as she softly said, "My husband has thrown us out of the house, and we have nowhere to go. Can we stay here?"

Knowing there was nothing she could do, Amy seated the children over to one side so she could talk to their mother.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Our shelter is jam-packed. Maybe you can try another."

The woman's tears spilled over. "I've already called all the other places. They're full." In the background, the phone rang.

Amy knew it was true. She'd called all the shelters before she banished the Christmas tree. She offered the woman a tissue and explained that as much as she wanted to help, there was just no room.

The phone rang again.

The woman began to sob. "My children just need a place to sleep so they won't be out in the cold tonight."

Amy's sympathy mixed with anger. How could she turn this woman and the two children back out into this weather? How could she house them when the only places left were sleeping bags on the floor that would block exits and doorways? And why didn't somebody answer that phone?

In frustration, Amy excused herself to answer the phone.

"I've called all the other shelters in town," a voice on the other end of the line said. "You're my last hope."

Hello, God?

Feeling a weight on her chest, Amy looked across the room at the pitiful trio huddled in the corner. "We have no room!" she wanted to snap, but she was too polite.

The woman on the phone continued, "I'm a member of a church in your neighborhood. This morning as I read my Bible, God told me there was a woman with two children about ten years old who need a place to go on Christmas Eve. I have my house decorated. I went out and bought groceries for Christmas dinner and presents to go under the tree. When I called the other shelters, they didn't know what I was talking about. Can you help me?"

Amy looked across the room, the flesh on her arms breaking into goose bumps. "Hold on," she said. "I have someone here waiting to talk to you."

Amy called over the young mother and within minutes the woman on the phone had made arrangements to pick up the family for a Christmas holiday.

Later that night as Amy read the Christmas story to her young son in their own snug home, she had new sympathy for an innkeeper who had to tell a young pregnant woman and her husband there was no room, and new appreciation for his efforts to make a place in the stable.

Two days after Christmas, the young woman appeared again at Amy's door. "My children and I are leaving town, and I wanted to thank you for a wonderful Christmas. We had warm beds, a big family Christmas dinner, and presents under the tree. The woman who took us in—her church raised money for bus tickets so we could go to my mother's home in Alabama. We can stay there until we get on our feet."

Amy smiled, a lump in her throat. What had seemed a hopeless situation had been firmly under God's control. She'd just needed a little faith—and to pick up the phone.

Virginia McGee Butler is a freelance writer in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Amy is her daughter-in-law.

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