The history of the comfort cross is relatively new but it has now become a dear and cherished way to derive comfort, especially in difficult times. The original hand held comfort cross possibly was made in 2001 when a hospice nurse shared with her husband that she would love to have something to share with her patients in the days leading up to the Lord calling them home. He made a small wooden cross with smooth rounded edges that would be held in one’s hand to remind them of the comfort and strength that only the Lord Jesus could bring. The idea really took off and these crosses started showing up in Christian bookstores and gift shops across the US.
I am not sure when the first one of these types of crosses was made in biblical Bethlehem. In 2008 I was sitting with my dear friend Jeries Facouseh in the office of his factory in Bethlehem when he laid an olive wood comfort cross on his desk and asked me what I thought of it. Honestly I had never seen one before but I did see where it could have potential. I told him that we would add them to the website and see how people responded. Within a year it was our best selling item. So, although the history is relatively short comfort crosses have become a cherished item of faith.
We get calls and emails continually with people sharing of how their loved one was holding to the cross as the Lord took them home, how some will keep one in their pocket just to be reminded of how much God loves us and others that like to cling to them as they pray. These crosses have been a true blessing to many.
Our olive wood comfort crosses are shaped more like an actual cross than most others that are offered. All of the edges are rounded and smoothed to make them comfortable to hold. We use a lot of olive wood from the Galilee region. These trees live for hundreds of years and the olive farmers provide us with the prunings, some of which are very large in diameter, that we use to handcraft these lovely crosses. This is a renewable natural resource.
Made with Holy Land olive wood from the Galilee, (where the Lord Jesus spent most of His earthly life) and handcrafted by Christian artisan Jeries Facouseh in biblical Bethlehem, (just a few minutes walk from where Jesus our Lord was born) add a great deal of meaning to these inspirational crosses.
