masking & unveiling

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.