Jude, 2021 Limited Edition Piece - Fontanini® 5" Collection

Jude, 2021 Limited Edition Piece - Fontanini® 5" Collection.

Hand Painted.  Made in Italy.

STORY CARD:

JUDE

The life of a woodsman was a hard one at best.  Jude spent most of his days wandering the hillsides looking through the groves of mulberry, oak, and cedar trees to harvest.   No matter how far away he found them, he hauled the trees back into town for the people to use.  Jude always kept the most beautiful limbs for his father Jadon, a local wood carver - but the rest he sold to make tables, tools, and toys.  While Jude spent most of his days alone, be never felt alone.  As he walked in constant conversation with God.  Jude took pride in his work and did not cut down every tree he saw.  He would take his time to inspect each tree and limb, ensuring the wood was strong enough to be useful for the people in his village.

Jude had begun to spend alot of time caring for a huge grove of olive trees.  Jude knew that if he nurtured them, the olive trees would provide food, oil, and medicine for his village and others for many generations to come.   He felt these trees were sacred.  Jude would lay beneath them, and stare up through the branches at the starlit sky, as he spoke aloud to God.  Every evening as night would fall he always prayed to God and gave thanks for his family, for his safety on the steep hills, and for the trees that were so important and necessary for the livelihood of so many people of his village.

One evening as Jude slept in the olive grove, a brilliant light shining through the branches woke him.  He could tell this was not the moon, as the whole tree seemed to glow around him.   Jude stepped out from under the limbs, bathed in the light of the grandest star he had ever seen.  Warmth and love seemed to fill his whole body.  Jude, so excited be what he saw, raced home to find his father, Jadon.  He found his father asleep on the hillside behind his woodshop.  Waking his father gently, he pointed to the brilliant star, and together Jude and his father Jadon thanked God for the glorious gift of heavenly light.  The glorious star could only mean something very special happened this night - something that would change the world!