The Story Behind the Recipe: Alva Hart’s Ginger Snaps

About 34 ½ years ago, my husband and I packed up our home, our one son, and moved to Cookeville. We left behind family we loved—and a tremendous support system in that family. We moved with the idea that we’d find a way home within two years. God had other plans. Growing up our family in Cookeville was part of that plan.

I laughingly tell newcomers to Cookeville that the quickest way to find new friends is to have a baby. People are so kind to pregnant women. We had four more—all boys, all Tennesseans but the one Kentuckian. They each call Cookeville home.

Another way to make friends is to find a church and become involved. It took us awhile to find where God wanted us to be, but we finally found a church home. It took a little time, also, to figure out where to volunteer. Of course, with all those babies, the nursery was a good place to start. 

Then, a few years later, the idea to venture out into other areas grew. One Saturday morning at a church training, I sat in the back of a class with an older woman in her 70s. We started talking, and I shared with her an article I’d read about a program called, “Mentoring Mom’s” – a program that provided an opportunity for older women to encourage younger women through relationship building – like getting to know each other over coffee, talking, sharing faith stories, the everyday ordinary, successes and challenges—sharing life.

My new friend Joan sitting with me in that back row during that meeting. said with passion, “We (older women) so need to be needed.”

(never disparage back-row sitters—it’s often a place where new friends are found)

In today’s world, older women are more hesitant to invite a younger woman to coffee. I had questions that needed answering – questions about healthy expectations of the life I was building with my husband, questions about God things, questions for how to pray about my circumstances instead of talking about them. . . but I had to reach out for that relationship. . . risk rejection. . .

The next thing I knew, she started a program in our church called, “Heart-to-Heart.” Older women in our church were paired for a year with a younger woman. I was extra blessed. Joan was my “mentoring mom” that first year – and really until she passed away over a decade ago. Every year for the next few years, older women from my church poured into my life.

Because I wanted to hear their stories, learn what they had to teach me, my heart opened to these women, and because, even though I could balk at new ideas – because God and His word can surprise – I was intentionally coachable.

The second year, my Heart-to-Heart was Alva Hart.

Alva and I would meet for coffee, talk about what was going on in our lives. She’d tell me she prayed for me every morning. She had my name on a Post-It note on her bathroom mirror. When she got ready each morning, she prayed for all the names posted on her bathroom mirror. 

She didn't just pray. When my husband was out of town for a month on business, she brought my boys a huge casserole dish of homemade Mac-N-Cheese. 

Alvah had three children of her own. Maybe she recognized the overwhelm, a mom buried under the tasks, the schedules, the challenges, the celebrations, the choosing-to-love moments when motherhood doesn’t feel like we think love should feel, , the mom-fails, the need to forgive ourselves, the determination not to give up—it was as though she saw my hand sticking out of a laundry-pile of living, waving for someone to know I was there. She was one of those precious people who did. 

Alva pulled me up through prayer. Through her example and the example of so many other women just like her, Joan Davis, Francis Holman, Mary Jean Dunn, Carol Harrel, I learned what God in a marriage looked like when you’re 70, 80 years old. I learned you still get mad at your husband—and that’s normal. I learned that you never arrive at a Utopian place and sit on a cushion for the rest of your life. I learned that there are people you can just call and say, “Would you pray?” and you don’t have to tell them why. They just pray—and God moves.

Alva was one of those people. So tiny and rail thin that a blustery wind could try to blow her away if she let it, she wasn’t going to let anything stop her, unless God told her to stop. She had unwavering, determined faith. The blustery winds would just give up and move on. 

She’d invite us to stop by on a Sunday afternoon after church to visit with her and her husband, Harold. Not many people would invite a family with five boys to their house for dessert, but she did. There’s a love that springs from God and pours from His children—one that makes you feel like you belong, that you are loved exactly where you are in life right now, that sees you as God sees you. Alva and Harold loved people like that.

One time she invited me over to make Ginger Snaps.

First, she gave me a tour of her home, taking me to her bathroom to show me the Post-It with my name on it. Her mirror was covered in Post-Its—with just enough room left so her husband could see his face when he shaved. There was something very genuine. . . real about that mirror and those Post-Its. I’ve always wondered if her husband ended up praying, too, while he shaved.

Next, this 84-year-old bundle of energy and can-do took me out to her garage to show me the bar where she did her chin ups. One by one, she did a set. She offered for me to do a set. I declined. I don’t know if I could have completed one. I knew when I was bested—and she wasn’t even competing. She was sharing the joy she found in her daily with me. It was a sharing time that still impacts today.

We spent the rest of the morning in her kitchen making her Ginger Snap cookies. I’d never cooked with molasses before. I wasn’t the baker then that I am now. Her Ginger Snap cookies expanded my baking horizons. They gave me more confidence to try things that weren’t in my family cookbook.

Baking is never just about the end-product. Alva was planting and watering faith seeds others had planted and watered—and God took care of the growing.

A young to middlin’ mom in a town far away from family, these relationships were impactful, priceless, and so very dear.

As Joan said, older women need to be needed. The older I become I understand that more. The younger me recognized I needed the wisdom and experience of older women.

It’s as simple as an invitation for a cup of coffee, a “Can I pray for you?” Maybe they ask, “What’s going on in your day?” – and mean it.

Maybe it is the young wife, the young mother, the mother in the middle of a teen challenge, a woman struggling with the nest emptying. Maybe it is a woman struggling with loss, with addiction, struggling with dreams seemingly unfulfilled, with learning healthy expectations in all sorts of relationships – and in all of that, learning how to stand on God’s Word and press into the One who Saves us, the One who has designed this journey for us that leaves us often perplexed, unsure, wanting to know how to do this life in Faith but so unsure of how-to in the right-now.

These mentors to my apprentice didn’t need to give me solutions – they just needed share their experiences with God.

Maybe the young woman, the woman in the beginning and middle of motherhood, maybe the growing older woman – maybe you are like I was – and all you need to do is reach out, reach out with your faith story, reach out to spend some time over a cup of coffee. These relationships never feel like school. They should never feel like a put-down. It should feel like God has sent someone who will love you enough to coach you through where you are—having the answers to someone’s problem is not required. 

Maybe it’s time to reach out to someone who just might need to sit over a cup of coffee with someone who believes God has a plan, who needs to hear they are God-designed, who just needs someone to care enough to give a little time. God will stir the conversation. You just need to be there.

Maybe invite them over to make one of your very favorite recipes, like Ginger Snaps!

“Remember the days of old;
consider the years of many generations;
ask your father, and he will show you,
 your elders, and they will tell you.”
~ Jeremiah 32:7

Alva Hart’s Ginger Snaps

Ingredients: 

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Mix eggs and sugar.  THEN add shortening.  Make hole for molasses.  Mix soda with molasses. Then stir/mix eggs, shortening, molasses and baking soda. After that is incorporated, stir spices into the flour and add to all the other ingredients one cup at a time. Shape into a log; cut, roll and dip in sugar. 

Bake at 350 degrees: 12 minutes

Do you have a story behind a recipe you’d like to share? Email the Highlands Insider and let us know: maryleigh@highlandsinsider.com