my achy-breaky heart

Oh, my heart.

Or, should I say, my hearts. I'm talking about the heart-shaped meatloaf I had planned for dinner, accompanied by a heart-shaped casserole filled with fluffy, garlicky, cream-cheesy mashed potatoes and a heart-shaped well of buttery corn nestled smack in the center. My salad would have boasted of home-toasted, heart-shaped herby croutons. And for dessert, we would have thrown caution to the wind and indulged in not only heart-shaped chocolate cupcakes, but a giant heart-shaped chocolate chip cookie.

And then ...

Dave and the elders decided, at 6:15 p.m. last night, to embark on a three-day fast. They want to pray for direction about a land purchase our church is about to make.

"But ... but ... tomorrow's Valentine's Day!" I said, feeling instantly small and unspiritual. I knew my protest was silly. How can heart-shaped meatloaf compare with prayer and fasting?

I was still feeling sad when I went into the kitchen early this morning and started dropping marbles into my stoneware muffin pan (my friend Nathan was kind enough to loan me his marbles so I could make heart-shaped cupcakes to bring to church tonight. You just drop a marble between the cupcake paper and the side of the muffin tin and it creates a heartish dent at the top of the cupcake). I'd had the whole day planned, right down to the last pointy, bulbous detail. But now Dave would be left out.

He woke up as I was pulling the first batch of cupcakes out of the oven. I could see by his face that this fast was costing him something. He's got a sweet tooth bigger than even mine.

"Sorry," I said. And I was.

Sometime later, as I was coating the cooled cupcakes with cheery pink frosting and sprinkling each with red, white and pink sprinkles--and feeling very sorry for myself--it occurred to me how blessed I am. I'm still going to make a table full of heart-shaped food for the kids, and Dave will probably stay in our bedroom praying and pretending to not smell all that heart-y deliciousness, and I'll be missing him with every bite.

But how many women have a man like that--a man with such single-hearted devotion to his God?

I will freeze him a cupcake.