You’ve probably heard the hotel\/inn commercial saying “We’ll leave the lights on for you.” It’s a cute little saying that has stuck with many of us these past few years.<\/p>\n
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There’s a story about an innkeeper and his wife who ran a Mom and Pop business. It was full the night a desperate couple came in who were exhaused and looking for a place to stay. The Innkeeper could tell there was a real need and felt very bad for the couple because he had absolutely no more space left.<\/p>\n
He also knew there were no other places open that time of night and told them the best he could do was to offer a small, dry space.<\/p>\n
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The couple was more than thankful for the location and settled there comfortably to make the best of the situation. They had learned they must be positive and make the best of their circumstances even though there were many hardships to overcome during the early part of their marriage.<\/p>\n
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As they settled in for the night they knew they wouldn’t get much sleep. She was expecting and there were no doctors or hospitals nearby like we’ve come to expect today. They were likely going to have to deliver the baby themselves. One would suspect that, since neither was seasoned at child birthing, it was going to be an interesting night. At least it was a clear and reasonably comfortable – weather wise. There was no heating or air conditioning in their little spot…and, as they found, no light either. That is, except some natural light from the clear skies with stars shining brightly.<\/p>\n
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When morning came, the baby boy had been born. Others heard of the birth and they had not waited until daylight to see the baby. They came immediately and sat with the couple till morning to celebrated with the young family. Some even brought gifts to share in the celebration.<\/p>\n
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Both mother and baby were fine.<\/p>\n
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Sometimes, the kindness and support of strangers is a miracle in itself. Thank goodness for innkeepers and strangers who help out. In this case, the innkeeper didn’t leave a light on, but he did share the kindness and compassion he had in his heart for this family. In some ways, that’s even better.<\/p>\n
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My wish for you today<\/strong> is that you seek out opportunities to serve others and share hope and encouragement with them whenever you can. You may find that you’ll be blessed even more than they will.<\/p>\n \n ~ Joellen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You’ve probably heard the hotel\/inn commercial saying “We’ll leave the lights on for you.” It’s a cute little saying that has stuck with many of us these past few years. There’s a story about an innkeeper and his wife who ran a Mom and Pop business. It was full the night a desperate couple came […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,25,32,16,27,18,31,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion","category-familyfriends-gatherings","category-holidays","category-life-events","category-living-life-to-the-fullest","category-parenting-families","category-releationships-general","category-serving-others"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}