No Room at the Inn

How I Learned to Open My Heart When I Wanted to Close the Door

THE FIRST DOZEN years of our marriage were financially tight for Nancy and me. Nine months and three weeks after our wedding, our first child, a boy, arrived. God, in his generosity, continued to bless us with more children, a total of eleven, six boys and five girls, arriving roughly every two years or so after that.

We were happy and grateful for each new son and daughter who made an appearance, even though many of our friends, and even some family members, were not enthusiastic or pleased by the fact that we were having so many children. No matter. Nancy and I were willing to accept however many gifts of new life the Lord might choose to send us. And time began to move faster and faster as each new member of our family came along.

Those early years of child-rearing were a bit strange in one respect. On the one hand, we were never shy about declaring our openness to life whenever Nancy’s belly began to swell with the promise of another son or daughter on the way. On the other hand, that openness often invited unsolicited and sometimes untoward comments from strangers and acquaintances alike, especially when Nancy went into a store pushing a stroller with four or five children in tow and pregnant out to here with the next one.

“Are you done now?”
“Was this one a mistake?”
“Do you know what causes that?”
“Don’t you have a TV?”

We heard them all. My favorite rejoinder to that last inquiry was this: if you prefer television to what causes this, then you are doing something wrong.

Shortly after baby number three was born, Nancy and I managed to scrape together enough money for a down payment on a modest home of our own. It was just 1,165 square feet, but it was our first. Seven years later, we had seven children stacked like firewood in that three-bedroom house.

In many ways, that phase of life was one of our very best. We had no money, but we had each other. Nancy worked hard, devotedly, and lovingly as a stay-at-home mother, while I commuted to my job and worked long hours to make ends meet. And so they did.

God always seemed to provide. With each new mouth to feed, a pay raise in my salary seemed to appear at just the right moment, along with countless other timely gifts of food, clothing, and necessities. Again and again, our urgent needs were met by the generosity of others who, almost uncannily, seemed moved to help us at precisely the right time.

In my own eyes, I considered myself a generous and welcoming man.

The Lord, however, had other plans.

Earlier that year, through a series of unfortunate events, my parents had gone bankrupt. My youngest four siblings were still living at home. With nowhere else to go and no money to find another place, my parents moved in with us. We made the best of it, all fifteen of us crammed, more or less cheerfully, into our microscopic 1,165-square-foot house. The fact that Christmas was approaching did not make things any easier.

Some background is necessary here. In the mid-1970s, shortly after the fall of Saigon, my parents generously sponsored a Vietnamese family who came to live in our home for a little over a year. With a large family of their own, this was no small sacrifice, but it worked out beautifully. Two different races, cultures, languages, and customs blended under one roof, and these dear people, refugees from horrors we could barely imagine, truly became like family to us.

One of the unexpected joys of that time was the food. The two young adult sisters in the family cooked for us often, and we loved it. They made steaming bowls of Pho, platters of crispy Chả Giò, and dishes seasoned with Nước mắm, all of it unfamiliar and exotic to us at first, and all of it wonderful. We embraced Vietnamese cuisine immediately. It felt generous, communal, and full of life, much like the people who made it. I have loved it ever since.

We learned new customs, enjoyed unfamiliar food, and grew more open and welcoming. That experience made us better Catholics and better people.

More than a decade later, those lessons had faded more than I cared to admit.

When my parents’ bankruptcy thrust me once again into the role of welcoming outsiders into my home, I am ashamed to say that I failed the test. This had nothing to do with my parents or siblings. I had already swallowed hard and done what was necessary. What else could I do, I told myself.

But when Christmas drew near, my father told me that a member of our former Vietnamese guest family, a young man named Cường, would be in the area. He had asked whether he could stay with us overnight.

I felt the hesitation immediately. I did not voice it at first, but it rose up just the same. I ran the numbers in my head. People per bathroom. Food per meal. Hours of sleep. Privacy. Quiet. Hot water.

As much as I wanted to see Cường again, I could not imagine how we could squeeze one more person, especially a grown man, into our already overflowing home. I worried about food, space, and hot water for showers. And if I am being honest, I worried there might not be enough of those things for me.

So I said no.

“No, Dad. We just can’t do it. I’d love to see Cường, and maybe another time we can make that work, but not now. There are just too many people here.”

I hoped my father would understand and pass along the message that there was no room at the inn.

Then Nancy took me aside quietly.

“Honey,” she said, looking at me with a loving but unmistakable come on expression, clearly expecting me to lighten up, give in, and say yes.

She gently reminded me that although we did not have a spare room or a spare bed, and not even an available couch, since one of my siblings was already using it, we did have floor space. And a sleeping bag or two. Nothing fancy, but enough to say yes. We could always make a little more food. And was it really such a hardship if the hot water ran out and I had to take a cold shower?

She felt the pinch of space and resources as much as I did, but she gently coaxed me toward generosity because it was the right thing to do. She was right.

I resisted a bit. I stalled. I groused. But eventually, grudgingly, I gave in, already preparing myself to grumble about our extra guest taking up space in our crowded home.

Then Cường arrived.

The moment I saw him, his familiar smile and the way he laughed happily as he hugged me and the rest of our family brought back a flood of good memories. “It’s great to see you after such a long time!” he said. It was as if the tension evaporated on the spot. We laughed, reminisced, and celebrated together in a way, and to a depth, I had not anticipated.

That Christmas turned out to be uproariously joyful, deeply happy, and profoundly blessed.

I had confused generosity with good intentions and hospitality with convenience. That night taught me the difference between welcoming people in theory and welcoming them when it costs something.

The lesson was already there in Scripture, though I had not been living it as fully as I thought:

“Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you” (Luke 6:38).

And:

“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?”

In my complacency, I assumed I already had made room for Jesus. I was wrong. God taught me that night what it truly means to be generous from the heart.

Copyright © 2025 Patrick Madrid. All rights reserved. All text, images, and other original content are the property of the author.

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