This Christmas, I'd like to give to you a special gift. Here is an excerpt from my first small book--Something Special at Leonard's Inn. This chapter was originally written to read as a retelling of the Christmas story before the gifting began. I hope you are blessed by the reading. Enjoy.



Leonard’s Inn

Leonard and Sarah were anxious about the taxing. Sure it would bring in extra business for the struggling inn, and how they needed the extra business. But along with all the extra business came the beggars, liars, and thieves. Bethlehem was filling up with more and more people claiming kinship to King David. Oh well, Leonard decided that he would make the best of the hectic situation.

“I’m telling you, Leonard, you should do just as your cousin Reuben is, out on Jerusalem Road,” Sarah was always giving advice. “ You will be able to weather the long dry spell to follow Caesar’s proclamation if you will simply double, or better yet triple, your prices.”

“We have been over this, Sarah. I will not stoop to gouging my kinsmen with unfair pricing,” Leonard was shaking his head in that fatherly way that Sarah had grown to love and to hate over the years of their marriage. “We will have plenty simply by sectioning off the common room for families and travelers. And they will all pay a fair price. No more; no less. You see how the inn has been filling up. We will be out of space before the night is over. The Lord will provide for the dry spells as they come.”


With the decree from Caesar Augustus, people from all over the Empire were flooding into the city of David to be registered and taxed according to their wealth, family size, and age. Leonard was almost prophetic in his prediction of space availability. He overheard the last two travelers saying that they were surprised that they were paying regular rates for the last two beds in town. Other hostellers were completely full although they had been charging two and three times the normal price for a mat on the floor. They had a friend that was paying seven times the going rate out on Jerusalem Road just to have a blanket strung up between his family and an old couple from Bethany. That Reuben, he is a shrewd one, Leonard smiled to himself, shaking his head in bewilderment.


He was just finishing the sign that said “No Room” when he saw them out the window. The young couple couldn’t have been married long. They were young. They young man appeared to be no more than twenty or twenty-two. He led a shabby-looking donkey that was carrying the youth’s wife who was “great with child.” Leonard’s heart went out to them. He could tell they were weary from traveling. He opened the door, the newly-painted sign hanging absently from his hand.

“Sir, I was going to see if you had any rooms left for my small family, but I see that you, too, have no space available,” the young man’s voice was tired and resigned, but he began to turn away to head on down the street.

“Wait! Young man, your wife cannot travel any farther in her condition. The streets are filled with thieves and robbers. The night is quickly approaching.” Leonard seemed to be beside himself, but for some reason he could not explain, he felt the need to help this young family. “Wait here just inside the door. I will see if there is not some space for you.”

Leaving the donkey tied to the post outside, the young man lifted his wife down and followed the inn keeper inside. With the door closed to the hustle and bustle of a city swelled to five times its size because of the registry, the poor family leaned heavily against the wall and one another as Leonard stepped to the back of the house. When he returned he found Sarah showing them out.
“ . . . I wish we could accommodate you, but as you can see, there just is no room. I am sure that Lemuel down the street—”

“Sarah!” Leonard’s voice fairly bellowed from the doorway that led to the animal stalls behind the inn. “You will not cast these poor travelers out while I am still in this household!” Taking his wife by the arm and pulling her aside, Leonard lowered his voice, but not the stern reproach it held, “On a night like this, you know that Lemuel will take even the cloak off of this poor man’s back. He might even confiscate the wretched animal they came in on. You can see that they are in no shape to travel further, and I have Daniel clearing a space out back. It is only a stable, but it will be out of the wind and away from the criminals who have made their way to our village to rob travelers of what is left after the likes of Reuben and Lemuel get finished.” To the young couple Leonard said, “My name is Leonard. You are welcome to a space in the stable out back to stay while you are here to register.”

“Thank you, Leonard. Yours is the first kindness we have seen since arriving in the town of my forefathers. My name is Joseph, and as you can see my wife, Mary, is near the time that she will give birth to the child,” the young man reached for his purse as he spoke.

“Put that away,” Leonard said, “what I offer is no more than a meager space in the stable with straw to make you comfortable. How can I charge money for the use of a barn stall?” Sarah glared after them as Leonard led the couple around to the stable behind the inn. Mary silently smiled her gratitude.


The noise in the street had started to subside when Sarah was called upon to help deliver the young woman, Mary’s, baby. As she was hard at work she noticed the two men, Leonard and the vagrant Joseph, standing to the side looking awkward. “You, father. Make yourself useful. Put fresh straw in the manger. It is not a grand cradle, but it will do for this night.” She turned her attention to her own husband, “And you, inn keeper who gives away lodging to any and all passers-by, go into our quarters. There are some soft cloths we can use to protect this new baby when he comes. Bring them to me, and be quick about it!”



Wrested from their wonderment at the birth of a child, the two men turned to the tasks assigned. When Leonard returned, Sarah was cleaning the young boy-child and getting him ready for the swaddles he had brought from the inn. The baby seemed to glow. Leonard knew that there was something different about this family. He knew that he had done something special that night.