Love is a Cherry Pie {Five Minute Friday}

It's Friday!  Grab your pen and five minute's worth of creativity, head over to Lisa-Jo's and get your five minutes on.  (You know you want to). 

"STRETCH"

Aristotle said it—“We are what we repeatedly do.” This is perhaps the best explanation to me of how it is possible for God to BE love...

My husband enters the kitchen on the morning of his birthday, and he is lackluster. I kiss him and wish him happy birthday, and he politely thanks me and returns to his breakfast. I can tell he’s feeling just a bit down, just a bit sad that pain doesn’t give you the day off for your birthday.

He says none of it; I only think I can read his thoughts. With a small smile and a half wave he heads out the door to work, and I set about my tasks. Leave a voicemail to tell him I am glad he was born. Head to the grocery for dinner fixings and his favorite treat. Write words in the card, the list of things about him I love. Prepare the birthday dinner. And his mother’s cherry pie, though I never get it just right—either too done on the top or too soupy in the middle. Sometimes both. But today as I stretch the dough to cover cherries, I pray and press and pinch all my heart for him into that pie.

When he walks in the door that evening, the first thing he sees is the twelve pack of coke on the table—a gold bow on its top, the front torn off, and the first two cans in the refrigerator. He tosses back his tired face in a laugh and wraps his arms around me. “Thank you.” He breathes into my shoulder. “This seriously makes my day.”

Mine too. Because today, I feel like more than a grocery shopper or a pie baker or a kitchen cleaner-upper. I feel like love. I am certain it’s the attitude behind what I do that transforms duties and chores into love. Some days I get to be love when I do third grade homework, pay the bills, or scoop the cat litter. Some days it is when I write a card, send a voicemail, or bake a cherry pie.

And maybe every now and then, I get to be love when I serve up a twelve pack of coke.