THE SHOCK FAMILY

Cloudy day. To-do list. Playlist. Feeling country. All is quiet in this house. Seems quiet in my soul as well. Doesn't happen every day. Thankful for it this morning. Hair appointment - what color? Mum shopping - what color? That made me laugh. The age where I can pick my hair color. I mean... that's been going on for years now. Decades. Feeling fallish. Maybe fallish colors? What am I even typing right now? That's what happens in my own little corner. And I'm here for it. Even if I'm the only one. We have a new grandson coming. Due a week from today. Our baby is having a baby. Is this real? Did I marry Kevin Shock? Do we have four married kids? Six grandchildren with a seventh about to be born? Am I grandma? I still feel like I'm a kid. I still love to play house. Chloe has the best imagination. Twice a week I get to run with it. And I'm good at it. We play house, and office and school and cruise. Of course cruise. My idea. But in my imagination I'm pre...

I'm here. Just a small place to post my thoughts. Not for the world to see. For me to process. Build. Dream. A time for me each morning to grow. And to have the freedom of not being "out there" for the where people judge. Friends on Facebook who aren't so much "friends" anymore. The ones I think about when I go to publish a post. I can be here. In my own little corner. Just like before. I don't know what all is on available here anymore but I can have fun messing with this page again. I need space. I need time away from the crowds. The ads. The doom and gloom. The comparison. I fear of being judged. I love to write. In my own way. With the freedom to be who I am. And the creativity to be a bit different. In my form and in my thoughts. If you see this? And you like this? You are free to follow along here. Comment and engage whenever you feel like it. I want to talk about freedom. About love, and kids, and grandkids and missing my parents. And I want to sa...

  Kid. My favorite name. Dad called me “kid”. So did Aunt Ruth. My brother Bill does sometimes. Kev does a lot. Oh, and one teacher at Snider. I think he thinks I’m younger than he is. I’ve got him by about 5 years. I’m not gonna ever tell him. I like when he says it. Why? What feelings does it bring up? Kid and Kiddo. I know I really am a kid at heart. I just somehow think it makes me feel safe. Protected. Like someone older and wiser cares about me. Is looking out for me. Knows me enough to call me “kid”. I’m the baby of our family. Not only my immediate family. Also the baby of all the cousins on both sides. And you know what they say about that, right? Once the baby, always the baby. I’m pretty sure I was spoiled. Spoiled rotten? Hmmm... Maybe? But I will say I have spent a good amount of my adult life trying to figure out what is going on with the kid inside of me. Just who little Karen was and still is. What makes her afraid and what brings her ...

The touch tree. Who I am. Everything God has made me to be. All my experiences? They are the soil.  My past, all mixed in together. The good and the bad. The hardest moments. The most glorious times. All working together for good. All growing me into me. Producing a tree that gives fruit. That needs to be watered. Rained on. In order to bring life. To flourish. These hard memories. The brokenness. The tears. They aren’t for nothing. The hope that springs up from the ground. The love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and self control. It all comes from the depths of the Earth. Rooted in Jesus. My weaknesses and hardships. My times of weeping and pain. Grow me up to be a strong, steady, place of refuge. Learning today to be grateful for the soil of my life. Thank you @glennondoyle for the beautiful illustration.  I want this to sink deep down into my soul.

  Today is one of the good ones. (May 12, 2021) Can I even write on this kind of day? So many times I don’t. Mostly because I’m superstitious and don’t want to jinx anything. What if I say I’m doing great and then something tragic happens? God wouldn’t want me to get to comfortable here. Even when I’m happy, I have a sense of impending doom. All part of the anxiety. I’m standing behind my desk in school, listening to fun music while I eat my lunch, all the while looking over my shoulder, wondering what is coming for me. Look, I just turned a fun post into a not so fun one. I am learning that my questions about life, my grief, and my general sense of uneasiness is warranted. You see, those of us with anxiety? Maybe we  aren’t so crazy. Maybe, just maybe, we have our eyes open. We see the World as it is. We ask questions about God because we care. I’ve been asking questions about how the World turns since I was a small child. I’ve always had a sense of the nearn...

  I used to think that the power of the Holy Spirit was about a certain kind of power. Like…  Power ranger power. Superhero power. Strong. Brave. Able to go be a missionary in a scary place. Standing up for Jesus. Saying no to sin. Not drinking, cussing, or gossiping. Ya know? That kind of power. Here’s what I’m learning. There is a certain kind of power that is talked about in Ephesians 3. A different kind than what I thought. It says that we, being rooted and established in love, would have the power to grasp how deep and wide the love of God is. A love that surpasses knowledge. Ok. Back it up. Paul is praying for us to be strengthened by the Holy Spirit. But for what? Why do we need strength? Strength for what? What kind of power are we talking about? The power to know. To know God’s love. To understand this love. It must not be easy. He is on his knees, praying we can get this. Then it says if we do grasp it? We will be filled to the measure o...