Joseph

It was quite a trial, let me tell you. I was betrothed at the time to Mary, when she told me that she was going to have a baby. Well, let me tell you, I was upset!               That baby wasn't mine, and I knew that, because we hadn't been together yet.

I was going to find a way to deal privately with the problem and divorce Mary and find another woman. But I had a dream where I was told to stay with Mary and raise the child as my own. He was to be God's Son! Of course, I married Mary, as I was told to do. You don't ignore messages from God, you know. Then that order came from the Romans that we were all to be counted. We were to go our tribal towns, and Bethlehem was ours. Problem was, Mary was getting near her time, and by the time we got there, she was due to have the baby - soon! And that

innkeeper, poor fellow, had no room for us at all. He finally suggested the stable, which turned out to be very nice, secluded and warm.  Just the right place for us at the time.

Jesus was born, very quickly and Mary said, fairly painlessly. But very soon, we had visitors. A bunch of shepherds came by and said that they had been told about the birth by a bunch of angels. I didn't know what to make of the whole thing, but Mary said not to worry about it.

We later moved into a house in Bethlehem, planning to stay there for a long time. But we had other visitors, Magi from a distant land, who said that the stars had predicted the birth. They also told us that they had been in Jerusalem, and that Herod knew about Jesus. That night, I had a dream, telling me to go to Egypt, because Herod wanted to kill Jesus. I later had another dream in Egypt, telling me that Herod had died. But because one of his sons was ruling over in Judea, I decided that it would be better to come here to Nazareth. Jesus really has been a very good boy, and does well as a carpenter. I have very high hopes for the boy.