Last weekend I went from market to market. And I didn’t do it to get caught up in the Black Friday atmosphere; I simply had several markets I wanted to visit over those two days. Charitable initiatives for a good cause that, every year, mark the beginning of the Christmas season.

It was a great opportunity to help and also to share some time together. I was able to reconnect with people I hadn’t seen in a long time, even though I’d been meaning to for a while. And it’s true that time is our most precious commodity because it’s so limited and precious.

I took the opportunity to do some shopping. Nice things to give to very nice people. Among them, a very special one: a balcony banner with an image of the Holy Family that reads: Here there is indeed an inn.

Seeing her was like a bolt of lightning straight to the heart, but I knew that love would have to be platonic, since I don’t have a terrace or a balcony. However, a name immediately came to me very clearly. It seemed as if that arrow had it inscribed on it: it was the name of a very special friend.

At that moment, I knew it was the perfect gift I’d been looking for this particular person. I’m absolutely certain that their home is truly welcoming to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

Wrapping it up, I looked at Saint Joseph, the Virgin Mary, and the Baby Jesus, and I discovered my great desire to be their inn as well. And I thought about how I wished my heart could be a warm and cozy manger for the three of them, always, not just now during Advent and Christmas.

To be an inn…

An inn is a place where pilgrims can rest from their journey. A space to recharge, warm up, eat well, and sleep. A place to meet other travelers from different places on their way to their destinations. A place to talk with others or simply to rest.

And I was thinking about those people who are a refuge for me. I imagine them as those so-called “vitamins” that everyone talks about. They aren’t many, nor are they very numerous, but they all have a face, a name, and something in common: they love me just as I am, without demanding anything in return. They welcome me as this vulnerable and limited Marta. This woman who can’t do everything and who stumbles a thousand times. This person with her own story, a mix of successes and failures, who doesn’t always know everything. In fact, she knows very little.

With them and by their side, I feel right at home, able to take off my shoes, put on comfortable clothes, and remove my makeup. A real treat.

Their names came back to me. Their faces. So many moments. Laughter, tears, long conversations, and silences, the kind that fill everything and don’t bother you.

Looking around and listening to many people, I realize that perhaps lately we’ve traded the quantity of relationships for their quality, and that we’re missing something very important that causes us a lot of suffering: the humility to walk in truth. That ability to recognize our imperfections and, even so, our kindness, our worthiness of being loved. Because how can I be a haven for someone if I don’t look at myself with truth and serenity, if I don’t accept myself?

Without this, it’s difficult for us to be a place of rest for others because we’ve never been one for ourselves. And perhaps this is where it all begins: in allowing ourselves to be a haven for ourselves.

The power to see ourselves with kindness and tenderness. With truth. To recognize our value just as we are, without needing someone else to validate us or give us a like. The power to see ourselves as God sees us.

Today, the world talks to us about an unrealistic ideal of perfection, leading to self-imposed pressure that, far from helping us grow, drags us down to the depths of despair, preventing us from walking upright. Everything seems to push us to be super-perfect in everything: as professionals, as mothers, as partners, as friends, as cooks, as athletes… in everything we do.

A demand centered on the narcissistic SELF that turns us into accumulators of experiences, successes, plans, trips… even relationships, objectifying that other person I have by my side to also turn them into something to accumulate.

And always echoing expressions like “if you want it, you can have it” or “if you dream it, you can achieve it,” when life teaches you time and again that you can’t do everything. That we are fragile and finite, and that we control far less than we would like.

Thus, our frustrated heart can end up building walls, making that inn to which it is destined become a cold and unwelcoming place, or even going so far as to hang up the sign of being closed to meeting others in order to avoid loving.

And as I finished wrapping the balcony curtain, looking at that Baby Jesus seeking lodging, in you and me, I knew that I wanted to be one of those people who, despite not being able to do everything, always have their hearts burning to give warmth.