Name: Mother's Filled Butter Rings (Christmas)
Ingredients: 1 c Butter; 1/2 c Sugar; 3 c Flour; 1/2 ts Salt; 1 ts Vanilla; Apricot preserves or other>> flavor of your choice.; Powdered Sugar

Our enemy knows that when he strikes the shepherd, the sheep will scatter (Matt. 26:31), and church leaders – even as the Lord Himself – are Satan’s special targets. The more faithful and fruitful a pastor is, the more his people need to pray for his strength and protection. He is more subject to the devil’s schemes to make him discouraged or self-satisfied, hopeless or superficially optimistic, cowardly or overconfident. Satan uses every situation – favorable or unfavorable, successful or unsuccessful – to try to weaken, distract, and discredit God’s gifted men in their work of “equipping of the saints for the work of service” (Eph. 4:12).

John MacArthur

CATEGORY	CUISINE	TAG	YIELD
		Cookies, Holidays	1	Batch

INGREDIENTS

1	c	Butter
1/2	c	Sugar
3	c	Flour
1/2	ts	Salt
1	ts	Vanilla
		Apricot preserves or other>> flavor of your choice.
		Powdered Sugar

INSTRUCTIONS

Cream butter and sugar until light.  Add flour and salt. Chill slightly
and roll 1/8" thick between wax paper sheets. Roll only a small amount of
dough at a time. Using a 2 1/2" cookie cutter, cut cookies. Cut center out
of half of cookies (I use my thimble to cut centers). Bake all cookies on
ungreased sheets at 400~ for 8-10 minutes or less, until very lightly
browned. Cool on wire racks. Spread whole cookies with preserves, piled
higher in center.  Top with cookie ring. Sprinkle with 4x sugar. Store in
tin box between layers of wax paper.
From Gemini's MASSIVE MealMaster collection at www.synapse.com/~gemini

A Message from our Provider:

“God will ultimately have HIS way, not yours!”

This depression comes over me whenever the Lord is preparing a larger blessing for my ministry; the cloud is black before it breaks, and overshadows before it yields its deluge of mercy. Depression has now become to me as a prophet in rough clothing, a John the Baptist, heralding the nearer coming of my Lord's richer benison. So have far better men found it. The scouring of the vessel has fitted it for the Master's use. Immersion in suffering has preceded the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Fasting gives an appetite for the banquet. The Lord is revealed in the backside of the desert, while his servant keepeth the sheep and waits in solitary awe. The wilderness is the way to Canaan. The low valley leads to the towering mountain. Defeat prepares for victory.

C.H. Spurgeon