A father and son...

When Jesus was taught by his father, Joseph, how to build furniture, cabinets, and other things, do you think that somewhere inside, the pain of a sliver in his finger or hand would cause him to know of his upcoming pain he would be asked to endure? Was he praying here, holding this plank and already feeling some of the pain caused by our sins, that were to cruelly put him on the cross?

I love this painting and see that the board he's planing, is held so tenderly, so thoughtfully by his gentle hands. He's embracing it with his whole body...like he "knows" what is ahead in some 20+ years. Is he praying in his "father's workshop" that he'll be able to go through the suffering, and fulfill the will of his Father in Heaven, by embracing a more heavy timber, with much larger splinters? Each of our sins were/are like the many splinters on that beam he carried on his shoulder on the Via Dolorosa. The shoulder wound, I've read is the one that gave him the most pain of all his wounds. The weight of our sins, tore his flesh on his shoulder, and exposed bone and I notice he's got part of this board on his left shoulder. Is he praying for his Mother, that she'll be able to remain along side him, in his agony, while hers will be so deep that he'll barely be able to contain his sorrow for her?

Did Mary come out to the shop with lemonade and cakes for their lunch and did she know "something" as she watched her son so skillfully maneuver his plane across that beam? Did it give her pause and cause her to ponder in her heart, as she'd done since the annunciation, how her son would die? Did she know that he'd not be with her much longer than two more decades?

As the Word of God, before the creation of man, he created trees of all kinds, that clean the atmosphere and give beauty to the world, housing birds and squirrels providing the relief of shade on a hot summer day. He became a carpenter, a fine craftsman, and worked with the wood provided by these trees to create beautiful, useful things for others...and yet it was the very same wood that would hold his beaten body, where rivulets of blood would stain that wood, and would run down that wood to the holy ground that shook as the sky grew dark and He cried out, "My God, why have you forsaken me?" Did he pray that his followers would find the strength to pray and trust in him to help them carry their own crosses? Did he pray we'd not leave our crosses on the ground in search of a more easy life, and then lose our souls, for material gain, health, addictions to ease or take away pain, aquiring riches as a sign of success, instead of the cross of suffering, that comes before true glory? I wonder....