How to Experience More Love, For Yourself and Others, Than You’ve Ever Known

One of my favorite Christmas carols has a line in it that says, “Let every heart prepare

Him room.”

To me, this line of the song means to let your heart prepare room for the real meaning of Christmas – for the real transcended experience of having a light that comes into your life that’s far more powerful than any darkness, and can lead you toward healing and a greater experience of love.

I believe that the real meaning of Christmas is that it’s a brand new invitation to walk with love.

Years ago, I heard a story about how to prepare your heart for the experience of a greater love than you’ve ever known.

A Sunday School teacher in the Midwest, and a group of the student’s parents, decided that they would present the nativity story to the entire church of about 800 people.

The 12 to 14 year olds were trying out for the different parts in the play, and there was one boy who had been kind of an outsider, a boy who didn’t quite feel like he fit in, and he wanted to play the role of Joseph.

This boy tried really hard to prepare himself to win this role, but in the end, he wasn’t selected for the role of Joseph. He was selected for the role of the innkeeper and, of course, the innkeeper has only one line: “There is no room in the inn.”

The young boy went home and told his mother that he was disappointed at getting this part…

The mother said, “The innkeeper’s actually a very important part of the nativity story, because if the innkeeper doesn’t do what the innkeeper does, then the story can’t unfold the way the story has always unfolded.”

And so, the mother said, “Just learn how to say that line with your whole heart, ‘There’s no room in the inn.'” So the young boy practices that one line in front of the mirror, over and over again.

Then, on the night of the performance, the church is full… and they even have a live donkey, and the would-be Mary with pillows strapped underneath her robe to look like a pregnant belly. And a boy playing Joseph walks with Mary to a large cardboard cutout that’s painted to look like the door to the inn.

Joseph knocks on the inn door several times, and each time, he’s turned away. Behind the door, of course, is the young boy who is playing the innkeeper. By this time, he knows his line well. He knows what he’s supposed to do.

He hears another knock at the door, and he opens it. But instead of Joseph standing there, he sees the young Mary on the donkey. And Joseph says, “My wife is about to give birth. Is there any room in the inn?”

Despite all his practice at rejecting this couple, the young boy playing the innkeeper says, “Sure, come on in!”

I love that story, because so many of us have been trained to turn love away in all of its various forms.

Going back to the line of the Christmas carol I love, “Let every heart prepare Him room,” the holiday season is truly an opportunity to let more love in!

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