I LOVED MAKING COOKIES when my children were very young. Most of the fun came from their excitement! My elder daughter loved to help, my son (my firstborn child) only liked to eat and my second daughter was pretty the same as him… But the excitement of them loving warm chocolate chips, Russian Tea Cakes at Christmastime, peanut butter cookies anytime was so much fun! Oatmeal cookies in my house were banned…

Precious are the days when your children love to be with you, love holding your hand when you go out and cry if you leave unexpectedly. I remember those days and know children are a precious gift from God.

NOTE: at this time I would ask you to go to my ‘SOB!’ because we all do know a baby is a baby is a baby whether he or she is in the womb, in the cradle or at her mother’s breast. I have added ‘SOB!’ – a very godly declaration at the very bottom of this Joy Story.

I rarely make cookies now; but I am a firm believer that homemade are the best! Love is the key ingredient which includes all the activities around preparing and baking them. Those fabulous smells filling the kitchen can’t come from a package; and there is never the same excitement of anticipation when opening a box of cookies that are neither warm nor infiltrating your home with sweet smells…

Years ago, although my children were no longer little, little, I was making peanut butter cookies. (I still have to check if that’s one word or two.) On this particular baking session it was evening. My son and first daughter were gone somewhere. My youngest, a grade-schooler at this time, was having a long, long splish splash in the bath. (Anybody remember the precious Bobby Darin?) I could continually hear her making waves in the tub for over an hour. I actually think it was an hour and a half. Very unusual… She was having a great time of fun, so I left her alone.

As she was having a wonderful time in the tub I also was totally enjoying my cookie baking time. Remember, this was my girl who didn’t help bake either, like my son.

What I was doing as I was making homemade peanut butter cookies was singing the same song over and over and over again: yes, for over an hour. The song was I Love the Lord: and, as nearest I come to Heaven, I was singing with a tape along with the great and beautiful Mahalia Jackson. Mahalia is a woman I loved at first sight and sound. I firmly believe our schools should include her in Black History Month: she is a heroine!

NOTE: Please go back to my writing Love At First Sight, dated February 23^rd (I didn’t check on what year.) This is a true and truly beautiful story of a little White girl (me) falling in godly and immediate love with a beautiful and godly Black woman that I have never forgotten or stopped loving – Mahalia Jackson! I have even asked the Father to have Mahalia meet me at the gate: I believe she will!

So I was singing along with Mahalia’s recording, I Love the Lord, for truly an hour, (or more) while heartily enjoying making peanut butter cookies for family and friends.

Now came time to put things away and clean up the dishes… and the sink.

Selah.

Remember the title of this Joy Story is:
PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES, A BLUE HEART AND GOD…

As I walked to the sink, I picked up my dish detergent for handwashing my dishes. I turned the bottle of blue soap upside down and squeezed out an amount enough to clean the greasy sink and then other things. Never in my life will I forget stopping, then gasping in awe: there in my sink was a big blue heart that I, myself, did not design. It was big! And it was obvious to me that I did not design this heart! I immediately knew – I just knew – God took His finger and fashioned a love heart for me! As I looked upon this perfect blue heart, at the same time I literally felt God patting me on my right shoulder and heard my Father saying to me, Ann Marie Turner, His child:  “I love you too!”

I make it a point to remember this amazing and divine experience:
PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES, A BLUE HEART AND GOD…

What an unforgettable experience this was; attaining immense fellowship with my Father while baking cookies!

See what an hour of worship can do?

God hates abortion:

SOB!

SAVE OUR BABIES!

Psalm 139:13-16

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.