Let me just start out by saying that the Bible is so very very true. It's full of so many things that just can't be disputed and one of those things is this: "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." That beautifully powerful and truthful verse is found in Proverbs 22:6. King Solomon spoke those words, and as you may or may not know or remember, King Solomon was the wisest of them all. He said it because it is truly true. My mom used to worry about my brother and his ways because he was not following the training and the Christian guidelines that she and Daddy would have preferred for him. He (my brother) was prone to doing things outside of the way we had been raised, and suffice it to say, some of his antics turned around on him and bit him in the butt! He'll be the first one to admit that fact. Well, today, that child of my mother's is quite old...old enough that dirt needs to show its respect, mind you. My brother, that old man, has returned to Christ and has for several years lived the way our parents would not only be proud of, but would be anxious to show the world as well.
Being seen as "good" Baptists was always important to my parents. I can remember my Methodist friends saying things like "Your parents are really strict, huh?" Well, yeah, they were, and it was for the best. Many of my would be friends couldn't cut the muster with Daddy, they would be asked to go home rather than being invited to dinner. He wasn't cheap, and it wasn't that he didn't want to share his food with them, but he told me once he didn't think they understood what family meant, and our praying at the table may not set well with their parents. He didn't want the neighbors up in arms or talking trash I guess. Momma was a bit more kind-hearted. She had all the kids in the neighborhood eating her cookies, drinking the actual Kool-Aid because that's what we had, we drank Kool-Aid. She was quite popular with her floury apron and a plate full of oatmeal butterscotch cookies on a Saturday afternoon, and it didn't matter what the weather was like, you could count on going to Becky's and being fed....just not staying for supper.
Being a good Baptist meant that the girls were taught how to cook for a mess of people, say maybe 80 to 100 people at a time. We were given instructions very early on, and I remember being about nine years old and being asked into the kitchen at Windsor Hills Baptist Church in Oklahoma City, by one of the older more veteran Baptist cooking women. I thought I was on fire! I was being asked into the kitchen! Are you SERIOUS? That must have really gotten up under the skin of about 20 girls near or around my age. To think, me, Jude, little Jude, being asked to help in the KITCHEN on a Wednesday evening. What on Earth or in Heaven had to happen for that to happen? I was allowed, even expected to butter the tops of the dinner rolls and you know I did my utmost. You know I took extreme (bragging) pride in that assignment. I was IN THE KITCHEN....and I stayed there for the next 127 years; doing what we do, because we do it. We're good Baptist women!
Well, about the time my son was graduating from high school and moving on into the world of the military, I left the church family to take my dog Faith around the world. After a few years of traveling and moving about with her, I just never returned to the kitchens of the local Baptist church, but I always remember to pray for the members, the various congregations, and the pastors of every group gathering to meet to pray and worship Jesus. I never actually joined the Metropolitan Baptist Church, I think my official membership (on the books) would be in Broken Arrow from about 1994. I have been attending Calvary Chapel Kaneohe online, and I attend The Superior Word online. The Superior Word is out of Sarasota, Florida, and let me tell you, my good pastor Charlie Garrett would absolutely appreciate my well over a century of Baptist cookin' and the fact that because I was Baptist for so long I know the trivial and minute details of every Sunday School story ever told! I win at Bible Trivia, you know that's a fact! If you're going to play in teams, make sure you bring a Baptist with you! He or she will be your Ringer when you need to know who married what king, how many babies they had, where the last supper was supposed to take place, and so forth. We did drills for FUN!
Today, for no reason whatsoever, I decided to make a big ol' batch of oatmeal butterscotch cookies, and though I don't have neighbor kids to share them with I will take them to a few of my elderly neighbors so they can enjoy them. If any of my friends come by later I'm fairly certain there will be more than a few left over. The batch made 6 dozen. I'm up to my eye balls in two-inch round cookies. Did you know we Baptists have a means of perfecting the two-inch round cookie? It's just a thing I guess, but once you've done it a gazillion times for a gazillion people, you pretty much get it down to a science. I never measure when I cook either, and for the most part, that's probably because in the kitchen of the church they may have had 1 measuring cup but about 10 cooks in the room at one time. You just deal. You figure it out. You make it happen. God bless the ladies I was raised under.
To God be the absolute glory...and pass the biscuits! (after you wash your hands and say Grace.)
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