Finding Christmas

Cody and Kayla (aka Mary and Joseph)

"Marcy, it's Melody.  I've got a couple here with a dog in my car.  They got a flat and couldn't find a tire.  They have nowhere to go.  I don't know what to do."  I looked over at my husband.  He'd been working most of the day on his message for Sunday and had just settled onto the couch to watch some television before turning in for the night.  "Let me talk to Larry," I told her.  "I'll call you right back."  He looked at me warily, already sensing that his relaxing evening was about to be hijacked.   I repeated what she had told me and then handed him my phone. "You need to call her and talk to her," I said.   "They can't stay in their car. We've got to figure something out."   For being so early in December,  it had been uncommonly bitter cold that day.   He reluctantly made the call.

Newly married and recently discharged from the army, Cody with his new bride Kayla had traveled from Kentucky to New Jersey and then on to New England, believing that family would welcome them as they put down roots and settled back into civilian life.  But it didn't take long to realize that neither family was anxious to embrace and bring them in for the long term.  An invite from another family member in Arizona was their only other option.

That's where they were heading when the tire blew passing through Big Flats, the shopping mecca that everybody from three counties shops at around here.  Cody made a call and had his vehicle towed to the Super Walmart, not far from where the blowout occurred. Surely they of all places would have a replacement.  But they didn't.  For the next several hours, in between calling every tire place he could find listed,  he spoke to person after person as they emerged from the store, asking if they knew where he and his wife might find a place to stay the night. But no one offered them any help.   They were desperate, low on cash and a hotel was simply too expensive.  He would later say that he had approached no fewer than 30 people on that frigid Friday afternoon. When he could, he'd crawl into the back seat and share the one blanket with his bride and her dog Tobi, occasionally starting up the engine just enough to ward off some of the cold. Evening was approaching, the sun had set and the temperature was dropping even more.

And then he saw Melody.  He approached her, and when asked if she might know of somewhere that he and his wife and their dog might stay, this one didn't brush him off.  She peered into the back seat of his car and saw a girl with her hands raised,  crying out as if in prayer, pleading for help.  And she knew that this was no accident.  This was a divine appointment.

Cody and Kayla would be with us for the next three days.  We knew as soon as they walked through our door that they were to stay with us.  After dozens of calls, Melody eventually tracked down a place that could order that specific tire. But it wouldn't be in until Monday. So we gave them the spare bedroom and Melody took the dog to her house.

From the moment we met,  I knew God had a special plan in mind, and He was using us, starting with Melody, to work it out.  From the warm coats supplied through the church's clothes closet, the hundred-dollar gift card won at a special event the next afternoon and the cash pressed into their hands on Sunday morning from members of the church, they knew that they had not been forgotten.  That same morning, they read aloud for the second week of Advent, then lit the wreath and the appropriate candles.  Hope came first. Love followed. Cody was dressed in a three-piece suit that morning with a matching tie.  It was on a rack in the clothes closet.  There just for him. 

We saw them off on Monday afternoon.  The new tire was on and the gas tank filled, both early Christmas presents I guess you could say.  Tobi the dog had been reunited with his people, and all seemed right once again.  I don't think either of us could have spoken as the car turned the corner, away from us.  We had them for just three days, but we had loved them from the very first moment they walked through our door.       
Larry still calls them his Mary and Joseph, in part because they were far from home and had no place to stay.  But it was more than that.  We needed to be reminded that in the midst of our preoccupation with all the preparations and busyness of the season, we were missing it.  And they brought it back to us.  They brought us Christmas.  They needed us.  But more than anything, we needed them.       

Kayla reunited with Tobi