As I was searching for a fun fall recipe, I started looking back through some of the amazing recipes from my little grandmother, Pauline. She was tiny in stature, but she cooked like a giant. She could have rivaled many pastry chefs, and her food was always bursting with flavor. She loved to cook. She loved to bake, and most of all she loved to serve it to her family to make them smile.

     Without a doubt my favorite cookie that my grandmother made was what she called a “dingbat”cookie. It had dates, nuts, and a host of other marvelous ingredients. The reason she called it a dingbat was that she had to be a dingbat to spend that much time in the kitchen for a cookie! To this day, I laugh about the name, but remember all of the amazing effort she put into those cookies.

     One of the things my Grandpa Charlie and I used to chuckle about was ginger snaps and windmill cookies. Despite my grandmother’s epic recipes that always turned out perfect and looked like the cover of a magazine, Grandpa Charlie and I used to love to sit and dunk windmill cookies in milk or eat a handful of tiny gingersnaps.

     I realize that sometimes the best way to go forward is not to get stuck looking back. Isaiah 43:18-19 says,

Do not remember the former things,

Nor consider the things of old.

Behold, I will do a new thing,

Now it shall spring forth;

Shall you not know it?

I will even make a road in the wilderness

And rivers in the desert.

    Sometimes the best way to go forward, is to look back and recognize the beauty and power held in the past, so that we can move forward and build on those great experiences.

     While I was thinking about this, I realized the greatest thing I could ever do is looking back to the cross when Jesus gave His life so that we could have life and life more abundantly (John 10:10).

     The story of the cross is unparalleled as far as I am concerned. There is no other story more powerful in the past that gives hope for the present and great hope for the future. 1 John 3:8 says, “for this purpose the Son of God was made manifest to destroy the works of the devil.”

     In every attack that Satan, the devil, is throwing your way, I encourage you to look back to the cross and embrace it so that you can look forward to a bright future in Christ. Not only here on earth, but for everlasting eternity.

     If you have never accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, or perhaps you need to renew and refresh your relationship with Him, I encourage you to pray this prayer…

Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus…

I believe Jesus is the Son of God and that You sent Him to die on the cross for our sins. I believe He rose again from the dead. I confess my sins before You and ask for Your forgiveness. I submit myself to You as the Lord of my life. It is by Your grace I’m saved by putting my faith in Jesus. Thank You for saving me by Your great love and for eternal life with You. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

     As you can see on the next few pages, I have included a few recipes for the fall. I pray they are a blessing to you as you look at the season as a time to celebrate a new harvest in your life.      

     As we look back and reflect on all the beautiful things that planting, sowing and reaping can create in our lives, it’s time to celebrate the harvest that sowing those seeds can produce. Seed follows after its own kind. As we sow good seeds in good ground, good seeds into good situations, even good seeds in tough situations…I encourage us all to make them seeds we sow according to God’s word and will for our lives.

     As we seek to do good and sow something good in obedience to God, we can expect a miracle and believe God will multiply that seed back to us “good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over” according to Luke 6:38.

    And we can believe that something good, really good from God, really can happen to us.

     I pray you enjoy the recipes on page 10, and perhaps you too may need to pour a glass of milk and get a cookie similar to a windmill cookie or a gingersnap, or something of your own preference, like I did with my Grandpa Charlie. Then sit back and reflect on all the wonderful things God has done, and thank Him in advance for all the wonderful things He will be doing.

     I pray you are blessed beyond measure this fall as you celebrate the harvest of God’s great love.