Cupcakes

Today there are cupcakes.

Not that I need one.

Or two.

I just felt like baking, Wednesday night, spending time in the kitchen
– a rare urge for me.

Before going to bed, I hid the chocolate treasure in the cooled oven, for save keeping overnight.

At sunrise this morning, I poured
the last of our coffee stash into the white ceramic canister beside the coffee maker, then walked across
the kitchen to write "coffee" in black dry-erase marker on the whiteboard that captures our grocery list.

I opened the oven door, took out the cookie-sheet filled with cupcakes, and set it on the counter. I poured a mug of coffee and grabbed a cupcake to take upstairs with me, to my office.

On my way out of the kitchen, I pass the whiteboard. I glance at the list, is there anything we need? Today? It appears our cupboards and refrigerator contain all we need. I know at a glance because I don't always write in black. I sometimes use blue marker, or even red, depending on the urgency of need.

(Yes. I am a firstborn.)

I settle in at my desk, take a bite of my cupcake, and open the list of blogs I follow. There is a new post from my friend Kimberly. She writes, "As we were chatting over coffee, Matt sent me the news that, after much seeking and negotiating, our annual orphan-food-purchase quote had come in ... extreme drought and consequential debilitating food shortage means food in Africa is going to be much, much higher ... My first response was an inner tsunami of fear..."

I cannot imagine her fear. I cannot quantify her faith.

Here, cocooned in my middle-class midwestern life, I need to put away my red dry-erase marker, and pray provision for the orphans.

Nothing on our grocery list is red-ink-urgent when today there are cupcakes.

Rw

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