masking & unveiling

Just kidding.

There's only one reason I'm shutting it down. It's because I think God wants me to. At least for awhile.

I don't have the words for what this little home on the web has done for me. I tried to say something about it last December, but the words were pale and anemic compared to the fresh rows that have been plowed across my heart.

Next Monday, I celebrate yet another birthday. The years are piling up like dirty laundry in the closet. They must be washed, and the way God is leading me to cleanse them is to write something more. There are things inside me itching to get out on real paper, and as long as I bring my best thoughts here, I cannot gather them for something better.

I could not have come to this place without you, so thank you. And I had a few more posts I wanted to get to, notes about the church and sacrifice and relationships that are scribbled in my head, but obedience can't wait any longer, so the posts will have to.

I'll miss you guys. I ask your prayers and encouragement.

And I do apologize that the last thing I left you with was "No Mo' Breakfast." Because that is just rank heresy.

I am trying to think of the right words to say here. But there just aren't any.

I added this to the comments, but I will say it more publicly in a post: I can't tell you how many men have quietly thanked me for the list below.

Most people have focused on the fun, sudden truth of point number five, but there's a reason that numbers one through four are repeated for emphasis. Two becoming one inevitably leads to friction, loss and wounds. The only way to survive long term is to lay your lives down — for as long as you are together — in continuous apology and acceptance.

The real secret of the list?

Wives will never have a satisfying sex life without learning forgiveness. And husbands will find it hard to choose forgiveness without enjoying a satisfying sex life.

As with all eternal things, grace is the lynchpin.

(This, in honor of the fact that Mike is making me get on stage to talk marriage with him in two weeks, and thus I am thinking of such things.)

1. Forgiveness
2. Forgiveness
3. Forgiveness
4. Forgiveness
5. Hot Sex

And my mother closes her browser in horror.

Mike taught on suffering this past weekend at church — how God does, in fact, allow suffering into the life of the Christian for His glory, His purpose, and His plan.

Not the smoothest pill to swallow.

I have always been struck by the response of Job in chapter 1, verse 21 of the book that bears his name: "Then he fell to the ground in worship." This response — after he lost all his wealth, his possessions, and his family.

It seems impossible. It must be allegory. Blind, God-centered, weighty devotion like that can hardly be real.

I recently stumbled across an epitaph recently for a Rachael Grudem, who died tragically in a car crash at the age of 23 back in 2005. She had been married for only three months to a 25-year-old named Alexander, the son of well-known theologian Wayne Grudem.

The stark statement of her death led me to search for her on the internet. But in the midst of seeking information about Rachael, however, I found a more comprehensive picture of Alex.

First: "(His brother) told us that upon seeing her body at the hospital...Alex began praising God. He praised God for being sovereign and for giving him such a beautiful gift, if only for a short while."

Then, I found the audio of Alex's brief, stumbling words at her memorial service. Listen if you dare — it's only about seven minutes. It will seem both quick and like an eternity all at once:



This is what it means to try to find purpose in suffering, to hold to glory when your world has smashed into a million sharp and bloody pieces. This is what it means to show the world that God is faithful and true even when your own heart screams that you should not believe it.

This is God most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.

I warned you I had a few anvil-weighted posts in the hopper. There are a few more, but it's all leading someplace, I promise. More about that sometime next week.

I heard an astonishing statement come from the mouth of a secular, impartial guest on CNBC this morning. He spoke about the widening downturn in our economy and the expansion of government influence and regulation:

"We have to come to term with the fact that it's our moral and ethical failings over the last decade that have brought us to this place."

I was reminded of something I once read in a Laura Ingalls Wilder book, of all places. She had just been to a Fourth of July celebration in the center of dusty Dakota Territory, heard the Declaration of Independence read, and sang God Bless America with the gathered crowd.

The crowd was scattering away then, but Laura stood stock still. Suddenly she had a completely new thought. The Declaration and the song came together in her mind, and she thought: God is America's king. She thought: Americans won't obey any king on earth. Americans are free. That means they have to obey their own conscience. No king bosses Pa; he has to boss himself. Why (she thought), when I am a little older, Pa and Ma will stop telling me what to do, and there isn't anyone else who has a right to give me orders. I will have to make myself be good.

Her whole mind seemed to be lighted up by that thought. This is what it means to be free. It means you have to be good. 'Our father's God, author of liberty' — The laws of Nature and of Nature's God endow you with a right to life and liberty. Then you have to keep the laws of God, for God's law is the only thing that gives you a right to be free.'

If society stops being good, it will by necessity stop being free. Don't blame socialism, regulation or big government on the political system, blame it on the failures of the American Church to fulfill its mission in the 20th century and see lives transformed from the inside-out. To fight on the front lines of freedom in our times will be to fight on the front lines of the cause of the gospel.

If we don't, I fear that give me liberty or give me death will become not an historical battle cry, but a prophecy.

Assuming the God, water, shelter, clothing, oxygen and bacon stuff is covered and all.

1. books
2. NBA basketball
3. soap
4. my Mac
5. a sense of humor

Your turn.

I just received a flyer in the mail from one of Orlando's finer restaurants, inviting me to experience its winter prix-fixe menu. The presentation was five-star, but one look beyond the fancy language and typography uncovers the fact that you'll be dining on comforting meat and potatoes. The dessert course offered no pretense whatsoever: "Ice-Cold Milk and Warm Cookies."

Savvy choice.

In our current days of political and economic uncertainty, people are clinging to the steady, the dependable, the familiar. The wise business notices, and the wise church will do the same.

Steady, dependable and familiar doesn't really mean we forego creativity and innovation in delivering The Message — steady, dependable and familiar become the source of our creativity and innovation for this unique chapter in the Church's history.

And the Christ, who is the same yesterday, today and forever, makes my work as a church communicator both easier and more vital than it has ever been.

Motherhood is the silliest, strangest, most sorrowful road I've ever walked down. The fact that people want to record it in pretty scrapbook pages boggles the mind.

I'm proud to be an American, too, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't punch Lee Greenwood in the face if I saw him.

Our church celebrated its sixth birthday a few weeks ago. I couldn't let that pass without expressing my gratitude to God. And asking for a seventh-year sabbatical.

Speaking of asking for stuff, after 30 days of concentrated prayer, Mike and I both received the same answer from God: now is not the time to move into that bigger, cooler, more perfect house. Rats.

Mike also received another word from God about me: "She must write to know Me." Crazy God, always up in my business. We shall see...

1. Das Dutchman Essenhaus, Middlebury, Indiana
2. The French Laundry, Napa Valley, California
3. The Breakers, New Smyrna Beach, Florida
4. My mom's Thanksgiving table
5. Chipotle, Anywhere, Anytime

What are you hungry for?

I haven't written much on the blog lately. For one thing, I've been too busy depleting the earth's supply of facial tissue with a nasty little cold. And for another, each of the current post ideas in my head has the emotional weight of an anvil, ready to smash both readers and unsuspecting coyotes in the face. Which would be especially surprising and cruel after all the video drivel that's been showing up here in the last couple of weeks.

Like all mothers, I also spend most of my time doing lots of crap that is both absolutely necessary and completely unappreciated. This paradox has led me to do bizarre things, such as beg a five-year-old to puke in my hands rather than on the clean sheets, or, as was the case today, to participate in schooling my own children.

The boys attend a kind of co-op school, in which they get three days to experience fresh air and an actual teacher, and two days stabbing blindly at knowledge with me. (For the record, I do win out slightly in popularity, but only because of my proximity to the Wii once class is over.)

Today was a homeschooling day, which found me sitting in the floor, working with Connor on reading. As Mike and I are convinced that he is actually a 37-year-old accountant in the witness protection program, he enjoys this about as much as one would enjoy a good skin rash. But we persevered, and together, we read our assigned book:

The Dog The Hog The Rat The Ram The Hen and The Big Big Din.

It was made up of fun sentences like A fig pot sat in a rut and The mad rat bit the hog on the ham.

The idea is, I guess, that if the words stay small, he'll be able to read them all, and thus feel successful. The reality? THE BOOK WAS STUPID. And Connor knew it. "What's the use of working so hard to read," he said, "if the stories don't make sense?"

And then I saw myself in his eyes, striving to whittle the tale of my days down into manageable bits, dumbing the prose of my world down to one-syllable words that won't overwhelm me. I strain myself to sound out the basic phonics of life, when I could just be writing a better — if harder — story out of things, driven to learn just so that I might discover its twists, turns, and fascinating end.

Via Steve.

I'll be serious again soon, I promise.

Happy valentine's day. And be careful out there.

1. fried chicken
2. fried shrimp
3. fried potatoes
4. fried okra
5. voltage-proof body armor

1. Traveling the world on my book tour (hey, I can dream if I want to)
2. Wondering why I didn't run a marathon sooner (hey, I can be unrealistic if I want to)
3. Watching Clayton leave the nest with grace and purpose
4. Taking a lot more uninterrupted bubble baths
5. And "training the younger women to to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God." Titus 2:4-5

What about you?

to be a Christian and not be involved in a local church?

This ought to be fun.

I bought new glasses recently, a belated attempt at allowing oxygen to reach my corneas after 25 years of sleeping in my contact lenses. I figure I have to make some healthy choices occasionally, and this seemed more within my grasp than say, jogging. Or giving up bacon.

I'd needed new specs for awhile (my former pair was a dozen years out of date and made me look a little like Woody Allen), but my purchase was spur of the moment: I walked into a store at the mall on a whim and walked out with custom glasses sixty minutes later.

How remarkable, this age and this nation we live in. Everything in an instant. Choices within our choices. If we thirst, we go to the faucet. If we run out, we go to the store. If we want, we buy.

Our needs can be gratified so quickly, though, that there is no need for a God to do it for us. We push away pain and and waiting and suffering as though they are the Worst Things Possible, when in fact they are simply the trial down here that helps us be fit for — and to long for — the eternal There.

Only when I have nothing can He truly be my everything. But all too often, I am content with my one-hour glasses, instead of with knowing the One who gives sight to the blind.

1. Freezing to death in South Bend
2. Freelance writing late into most every night
3. Chasing a two-year-old, whom I was sure would be my only child
4. Unwittingly starting a career in church communications
5. Constantly tripping over my fresh-faced, 20-something lack of wisdom

You?

I'm generally not fond of memes. But I've been tagged a dozen times or more for this one, and I'm too weary to write the blog that's on my heart tonight. So Facebook friends, this one's for you:

25 RANDOM THINGS ABOUT ME

1. All of my foreign travel (five countries) has involved missions. In most cases, this sounds a lot holier than it actually was.

2. Apparently, many people think I don’t like them when I meet them. Honestly, I’m probably just shy or preoccupied. Or else I just don't like you.

3. However, I genuinely didn’t like Mike when I first met him. But he grew on me faster than mildew in the Florida July, and the rest is history.

4. I promised myself that I would never marry a pastor.

5. I am not that great at keeping promises to myself.

6. I’m one of those neurotic people who write things on their lists after they do them just so they can cross them off.

7. On my to-do list for life: learn to play the guitar, visit the Northwest, go to an Olympic games.

8. I cannot watch people make fools of themselves on TV, a la American Idol rejects, or that video of the Miss Teen South Carolina girl. I have to physically leave the room.

9. With rare exception, I hate going to the movies. I’d much rather do something else with my two and half hours, and I see plenty of comedy and tragedy firsthand in my line of work.

10. I played classical piano so well as a child that I was invited into a college program at age 12. I couldn’t play a song that well now even if nuclear disarmament depended on it.

11. I almost died at the end of my pregnancy with my first child; Clayton was 2 lbs, 9 oz and was born while I was in a coma on life support. For a time, I considered a lawsuit against the writers of What to Expect When You’re Expecting.

12. And as if that weren’t enough, I couldn’t move a muscle in my body for weeks after I came out of the coma. I went through months of physical therapy to get the strength to talk, write, and walk again. I learned a lot, but I recommend that you just listen to God the easy way.

13. My hair is already more than 70 percent gray. I come from a long line of proud, strong, prematurely-geriatric-looking people.

14. Never-in-a-million-years did I think I’d be a graphic designer. Or do anything artistic for a living. I am so Left-Brained; it still puzzles me.

15. I had a secret, distant romance with someone for years, before I ever met Mike. Wouldn’t you like to know?

16. I've had severe asthma since I was 20. Two little inhalers keep me alive from day to day.

17. I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. If you scratch me, a Southern Girl will still magically appear and offer you biscuits and gravy.

18. I have a Master’s Degree, and the only thing it ever gave me was the license to say that phrase.

19. I was a band geek in elementary and junior high: flute in the symphonic, piccolo in the marching.

20. I feel most alive when I’m singing.

21. But I have never wanted to sing for a living.

22. I love Disney World with a passionate love. It is the thing that makes living in Florida tolerable. Oh, and all you nice people, of course.

23. I tend to be generous with my stuff but stingy with my time and affections.

24. I was told by doctors as a child that I’d never be taller than 5 feet, and I was always the shortest in my class pictures. But I grew six inches in the summer before high school — and now I’m exactly that much taller than the medical predictions.

25. I could kill you in a game of Trivial Pursuit. Like make you cry. You big baby.

The Adkins kids have all been late walkers, and that's perfectly fine with me — the slower they are, the easier it is for me to pretend I don't have the cardiac health of a catatonic lab rat. Plus, they're way ahead of schedule in so many other vital subjects, such as Perfectly-Timed Sarcasm and Clever Ways to Feign Adorable Innocence. Mother is proud.

Katy Claire's been taking her first tentative steps lately, and over the last few weeks, I've noticed she tries to walk more on Sundays at church than anywhere else. Perhaps it's the unfamiliar surroundings there, or some sort of toddler peer pressure. Or maybe it's just a bigger audience — more people to ooh and ahh over her magically advancing feet. Whatever it is, it's not present at our home; here, she crawls quite comfortably amongst her conventional places and things, dropping on all fours immediately as if to say YOU PEOPLE ARE NOT WORTH THE RISK.

So often my spiritual life is like that, saving my steps of growth and change for the show — for moments when people are watching and celebrating my spiritual success. I do not often appreciate the quiet, private, patient transformation of the Spirit, where He alone is my portion and my prize.

So instead, God will keep moving my boundaries — stripping my comforts and calling me out into unfamiliar places — so that in His mercy I might stagger on to faith.