Years ago when the kids were little, I used to tole paint and sell my creations at Craft Shows to make extra money for birthdays, holidays, shoes and sports. Living on one income for 30 years was tight, but my creations seemed to help us out a bit. One year in the midst of all my orders, I thought it would be wonderful to paint a nativity that was out of wood for the kids. That way there would be no fussing or reminding them to be very careful, as they arranged the nativity. I found this book that had patterns for one that was of children dressed up like the nativity characters. I loved this because... every year our kids did a live nativity with their cousins, and we all have wonderful memories of that.
I then decided I should do 3 sets ( 2 more of Lauren and Amy when they had families ). That is because at the time, I thought they liked them! I won't go into that right now! :)
I am not sure why I decided to do Mary last, but maybe it was because I didn't want to rush on painting her...for some reason I have always had a warm place in my heart for her. What a great example of courage and faith she is.
Not long after I had finished all the pieces except for the 3 Marys... I went down in my back. This time was much much worse than ever before. After being taken to the hospital and after all the MRIs and X rays we found that I had 2 discs herniated and 2 stress fractures near the tip of my tail bone ( the rest of that story needs to be a blog post in and of itself! )
I was in a wheelchair for a year, stuck in the house doing absolutely nothing and very limited in my activities and ALWAYS in constant pain. Needlesstosay...here we are years later and every time I put out my wooden Hand Painted With LOVE nativity set, some one always asks me where Mary is?
"She never quite leaves her children at home, even when she doesn't take them along." ~Margaret Culkin Banning
"Any mother could perform the jobs of several air traffic controllers with ease." ~Lisa Alther
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