The Boy Carpenter Project Update: 9/11/2014

"When I Grow Up" The Childhood dreams of the Son of God

This children's book about Jesus as a youth is a beautiful expression of the hopes and dreams that live in all of us.  Inspired by God's own precious child, I wrote this children's book to honor my own daughter, Brittany. Brittany is a cancer survivor. Through her personal experience, I know prayers and dreams for our own children are answered and God wants to bless many people through the powerful symbolism found throughout this book.

The next step is prayer support and financing to help get it published. I’m looking for one maybe two people who will bless this project with the funds to make this children’s book a reality. You can be anonymous in your giving if you wish do so. Please pray about it. If needed, I can send you out the manuscript to look at and make your decision based upon the work itself.

Simply by clicking on this link you can make a secure financial donation through PayPal @ my website.


Your generosity is for a kingdom purpose and your reward is spreading the message of God’s beloved Son to many children. Thank you and God bless.


James Robert Kessler
Because of Him Art Ministry 2014


Brittany Nichole 2001

This site, The Boy Carpenter Project, is dedicated to God's own child, His precious little lamb and our savior, Jesus of Nazareth.

Recently I was asked why I decided to write a children’s book about Jesus as a youth. It then occurred to me that I should publicly share the motivation and inspiration behind the painting that first inspired the book, then the writing of the book itself many years later.

So here is a brief excerpt from the "When I Grow Up," dedication page. I hope it will inspire others who read it to pursue their own God dreams no matter what you feel might be lacking in your life.

“This book and journey began for me with a simple prayer in January 2000. It was a prayer for my daughter Brittany Nichole Kessler after she was diagnosed with a rare bone cancer.

As I watched her go through the surgeries to remove the cancer from her leg and the six months of aggressive chemotherapy that would follow, my relationship with God was tested mightily. How could the God I thought I knew let this terrible thing happen to her? He had to know what it was like to watch my child lose her beautiful long hair and deteriorate before my very eyes. But for some reason I can’t explain, I felt that I was in the middle of a beautiful storm during this trying time.

A beautiful storm is an odd way to describe what I was going through, but I began to discover that God no longer lived beyond the stars, but rather in the eyes of a little girl who was battling cancer. As I sat by her hospital bed those long sleepless days and nights, I would talk with God. I would remind Him that He once had a little boy about her age, and that the love I felt as a parent for my daughter was inspired by His own love for His precious Son, Jesus.

The inspiration behind When I Grow Up came out of this period in our lives. My prayer conversation with God was full of desire to see her grow up and experience the excitement of a first date or the happiness of her first prom, to graduate from high school and, eventually, experience the joy of having her own children.

Almost ten years later, nearly all of my prayers for her have been answered. College has helped her answer that “When I Grow Up” question, and the joy of having her own child has arrived and we are now blessed with a miracle grandson, Charles William Sinagra, that all her doctor's said would probably never happen. Praise God!



Charles William Sinagra (August 2014)

True inspiration doesn’t mind the circumstances from which it is born. Inspiration born of God is His gift to us. Yet for reasons hard to humanly comprehend, not all children have that opportunity to ask the question, “When I grow up I want to be a….”

There are many children who grace us for a brief moment with their presence and then are suddenly gone. “When I grow up…” most likely never crossed their own minds, although I suspect as God’s children, their lives were fully lived in the dreams and hopes that God had for each of them.”


Our credentials are only worth something when use our gifts and talents to serve other’s. After Brittany’s last Chemo in 2001, I went home and painted the picture that inspired this book. Eight years later God reminded me of our prayer conversation and have written Brittany's story of hopes, dreams and answered prayers.

God is good. He has been faithful to Brittany and myself and God will always be faithful towards you as well.


Brittany & Baby Chas 2014

In Christ Victorious,

James Robert Kessler
Because of Him Art Ministry 2014