Here We Go

A new adventure.

Writing on a new site.

Hoping to bring along my old friends.

And make some new ones.

Karen Ruth Shock.

Added my middle name because Kev says it sounds cooler.

Kev is my husband of 28.5 years.

He’s real cute.

More on that later.

I’m a momma of four grown children.

They are all cute as well.

Look like their dad of course.

I homeschooled them for twenty years.

Don’t let that fool ya.

I was and still am a homeschool misfit.

Lots of stories on this as well.

Along with the anxiety and depression.

Not really feeling like I fit it anywhere.

Oh, and then there is the whole “trying to be a submissive, gentle, and quiet wife.

Haha.

I laugh as I type.

At age 51 I think I might be settling in to who God made me to be.

Which ironically is a person who asks lots of questions about who God actually is.

I used to fear those questions.

Afraid of what the “church” might think of me.

Afraid of being too dangerous.

Let’s not scare the younger ones.

So I kept quiet.

Until I couldn’t anymore.

My faith has progressed.

God has stayed the same.

I’m just progressing in my knowledge of who our God is.

My walk with Jesus got real complicated there for awhile.

Lot’s of systematic theology.

Books and podcasts by a whole lot of older, white men.

Seeing God as an old professor in the sky.

Hoping I was hanging out with the right study group.

Believing that what I believed about God was what was most important.

An “A” for knowing the five points of Calvinism.

And I knew those babies.

All five of them.

Which made terrified of what would actually happen to babies when they died.

So I asked questions.

I questioned those points.

And a whole lot of other points as well.

So the leaders got scared.

Shhhhhh….

Keep those questions to yourself.

So there I was.

Looking out my bedroom window at night and wondering if this God even existed.

My World began to crash around me.

The foundation began to crumble.

Not Jesus.

Never Jesus.

More so the rules and regulations that man had made about him.

Let me be clear.

No-one pushed me this way.

Rob Bell never led me astray.

He was actually one who helped me hold on.

Or see that God was still holding on to me.

My momma believed in a Jesus that was so very real to her.

Simple.

And real.

I used to wonder if she was even a “christian” because she didn’t know the Bible like we did.

I have many stories about her as well.

A beautiful soul.

Who knew Jesus well.

Not the professor God in the sky.

The one who resides inside of us.

Comforts us.

Loves us.

And lives through us.

Jesus told the pharisees they were searching in the wrong place.

They knew those scriptures by heart.

And yet?

They could not even recognize their savior when he was standing right in front of them.

Oh, how I’m learning to see him.

Right in front of me.

Right there inside of me.

Those pharisees?

They could have used a little progression.

Don’t ya think?

So here we are.

On a journey.

To know and be known.

To feel so not alone.

Let’s walk together.

Let’s keep leaning in.

Loving one another.

Sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly.

This World we are living in is tough.

And pretending to have it all together?

What’s the point?

If we do that?

Pretend?

Then we can never really know if we are loved.

By God or by one another.

Ok.

Let’s do this.

Let’s have a blog.

Karen R Shock resides in Fort Wayne, IN with her husband and their youngest son. She had three more children who are married and four beautiful grandchildren. Oh, and a dog name JT Barrett (Go Bucks). She is a retired homeschool mom and is now a high school teacher and cheer coach. Life is hard, but fun.