Resurrection Cookies

My mom sent me the recipe a few years ago for "resurrection cookies"- you've probably heard of them.  You make them with the cakes and each step is significant in telling the story of the resurrection.  For example, vinegar is the bitterness of the death on the cross, egg whites represent the purity of God's love.  I've never made these with the girls, always intended to but it's just never happened.  I decided this year was the year, especially since Naomi is at the age where she can be more aware of the spiritual side of the Easter story and can maybe begin to understand it.  Also, we've had some really sweet moments the past few days with the older girls explaining to her what Easter means, how much God loves her etc. 

So, last night we began the cookies with Maddie and Naomi doing the steps of the recipe and Abbey reading the Scripture that went along with each step.  Save a few minor distractions, Naomi seemed to follow the whole process pretty well.  For those of you who don't know, the last step of these cookies involves putting little mounds on the cookie sheet, explaining that these mounds represent where Jesus was buried and then shutting and sealing the oven door.  You then turn off the oven, leave the cookies overnight and the next morning, they have ideally expanded to form an empty, meringue type shell which on Easter morning represents the empty tomb.  Well.     So after we shut and sealed the oven door and I was beginning to clean up, Naomi asked me for a marker saying she wanted to make a list (a standard fave activity these days).  After a few minutes, I asked her what her list was about and she says,  "I'm making a list about how we just cooked God."   

Unfortunately in the Cox kitchen, it seems the visual cookie picture just might not be complete....  If you've had a week like I've had, you just might not beat the meringue for the 12-15 minutes that it says to beat it if it seems to have formed stiff peaks before hand.  Unfortunately this seems to have been a crucial step in the process as I just checked and we don't have empty tombs in our oven, we have flat, squishy messes.  Thankfully, in our real lives, God does not remain "cooked", He is very much alive and well, let's just hope I can convince Naomi of that!