Jeannie Keneley

Baskets, Bunnies, and Religion

You know, I realize that I’m probably not like a lot of Christians, in that I am very relaxed in my relationship with Christ to the point that I will share my experience of knowing Him with anyone that cares about having the discussion, but for the most part I pretty much figure I’m in their life just to love them.

At Easter, I’m also not one that feels the necessity to scream above all of the commercial pressure to buy eggs,  Easter baskets, and clothing to remind everyone else of what the"real reason for the season" is.  The truth is that all religions have celebrations at this time of year commemorating one thing or another, and even for those with no religious affiliations, most of humanity just feels the urge to celebrate the newness of life at the awakening of Spring!  In fact, I’ve always loved making the kids Easter baskets and I love seeing the kids all dressed up on Easter morning.  I’ll be the first to bite the ears off of chocolate bunnies and hide the eggs for the kids to find after dinner.

And yet, there are a couple of seasons each year that seem to bring out the worst in people, trying to promote their religious causes as heard around restaurant and family tables across America. To be honest, I find that arguing over which religion is the right one or the wrong will most often minimize or destroy the very spirit that every religion claims drives them … one of love… for God and each other.  Instead we need to be right, standing staunch in our religious and intellectual convictions, as we enlighten all the black sheep of the family (and anyone else within earshot) to the superiority of our traditions and teachings.

You know, I am perfectly aware that Jesus probably wasn’t born on December 25^th, and He probably didn’t resurrect to new life on the first Sunday in April, and furthermore I don’t care.  I don’t claim the name of Christ because of what I’ve been taught, or how I was raised to believe.  Although I consider myself an adopted child of Judaism through my belief in Christ as the Messiah, I know that my Jewish friends wouldn’t see it that way…and that is where we get caught and stay… in the argument over who is right.  That, my friends, is why people run away in droves from religion.  Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Mormonism, Christianity, Judaism (and the list goes on...) – we all do it.  Like I did at one point in my life, many adopt the attitude that “I’m not religious, I’m spiritual”…and we form another religion of our own making, believing once again that we are right.

I am not a Christ-follower because of my religion.  I am a Christ-follower because of my relationship with Christ.  You see, after I tried living my way for most of my life, messing things up again and again, I finally came to a place of sweet surrender and let go in the arms of God.  It’s impossible to explain, but like Mary Magdalene at the tomb that morning some 2,000 or so years ago, my eyes were opened to a new dimension of existence – one where I recognized my truest self, my life was in Him.  We grew into a deep relationship of trust – not one of rules, regulations, and religion.  Just a friendship where I know He has my back – no matter what.  It’s relaxed, it’s pure, it’s easy – like sitting with your best friend.

So with my Easter bonnet on, and my chocolate bunny ready, I celebrate the abundance and new life of Spring with everyone else this year. I also celebrate again the new life that I realize is very personal and special to me, where I left all the brokenness of my past and entered into a new dimension of life with Him. The words of an old song express it best for me – “I’ve just seen Jesus, and I’ll never be the same again!”

Happy Easter everyone – however you celebrate it!

 

Dancing In The Rain

I was in a home décor shop a few weeks ago with my sister, when I spotted a plaque that touched me.  The saying went something like this…

“Life Isn’t Just About Getting Through The Storms; It’s About Learning To Dance In The Rain”.

I would have to admit that this little thought stopped me dead in my tracks.  As I looked at my sister, we just smiled and I noticed a tear in her eye.  It’s so true.

A peace washed over me that transcended all of the panic over the world economy and global crisis.  It went so much deeper than any of the issues that I have ever faced in my life or ever will.  It is a peace that everything will be alright because I know that the same God, who loved me enough to come and die so that I could live, is the same God that holds all of our chaos in the palm of His hand.  I imagine Him sitting back and watching us try to get ourselves out of the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into, thinking “Kids… will they ever learn?”  I know this much; As any good parent giving their children wings, He will let us learn our lessons.  

As a Christ-follower I live with a knowing that when I’ve fought all my battles, cried all of my tears, and finally come to the end of my own egocentric existence, I will stand in front of Him, not thinking about any of the problems that I’ve been through, the mistakes that I’ve made or the sins I’ve committed, but in holy adoration and gratitude that I will not be held accountable for them.  Yep, I live knowing that in the end, I will be standing on the winning side, and all of this earthly mire we keep wallowing around in will be gone forever.

Perhaps like you, I have been through more storms in my life than most, some of which I didn’t know if I’d live through.  But it’s because of those storms that I came to a point of complete surrender and put all of my trust in Jesus Christ to direct my life.  When I did that, He reached down and took my hand.  Slowly, I started to hear it…the music…what The Message calls the “unforced rhythms of grace”.   As He gently pulled me back to my feet we started moving together, one step at a time…one, two, three….once, two, three…  Before long, I got caught up in the beat and before I knew it this dance of communion with Him felt like second nature to me.   Today, there isn’t a whole lot that can rob my joy for very long.  The Holy Spirit just reminds me to listen for the music…for the rhythms of His grace…to keep my hand in His…and keep dancing!

I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving this year.

 

Summertime and the Livin' is Easy...

Summertime and the livin’ is easy….or is it?

Oh the sweet summer days and evenings filled with sunshine, picnics, water parks, bbq’s, vacations and staycations!  As the screams of delight and laughter of children at play fill the neighborhoods across America, you can almost hear the silent prayer of thanks lifted in unison by mothers from coast to coast for that annual blessing from heaven otherwise known as “back to school”.  As we attend the usual barrage of summer weddings and await the births of babies, we all bear witness once again to the cycle of life that with each new season of birth and death holds the unique power to delight and disappoint, energize and exhaust, gift and grieve us.    Livin’ in America…ain’t it great?

This summer has been different somehow.   Amidst all the usual family filled fun times of summer, there is a different feeling in America this year.  As I talk to people I hear again and again an underlying fear and despair coming through in the conversation.  I have personally never seen America in quite this serious of a predicament in my adult life.  With record numbers of Americans losing homes and jobs, ridiculous oil prices putting the squeeze on all of our wallets, the skyrocketing price of not “living” but rather surviving in this economy is hitting hard.  In talking with a friend the other day we were discussing how easy it is to look at the current state of world and domestic affairs and lose hope.  When we can’t see a way out of the circumstances we find ourselves in, this fear can become a stranglehold on our faith in God and in the future.

If we are honest with ourselves, we have collectively created the mess we are living in right now.  As I watch the atrocities being committed in Darfur and the Congo and contrast that with the way I live, I am appalled to think of the way we waste our freedoms because of our own attitude of entitlement as Americans.  With all that we have been blessed with, I fear that we are selling our birthright to other countries for the sake of having what we want when we want it in the easiest way possible.  Is that what the American dream has become? 

As I talk to other Christ followers, I find it interesting to find that even among Christians, we don’t always want to look introspectively to take responsibility for our own actions that get us into these situations.  Whether on a global scale or a personal one, we find it easier to blame God, asking how could a God of love let this happen?  Even some that try earnestly to follow Him, can’t understand why everything doesn’t work out the way they’ve prayed.  We buy into theories of the law of attraction, we pray and meditate from a self centered core, giving much less importance (if any at all) to God’s laws of love that require responsibility,  accountability, and a heart for the common good that need to work hand in hand to balance things out.  When things don’t work out according to our plans we repeatedly arrive at one question…can I really trust God with my life?

If you’ve ever felt that question welling up within you, I would ask you this.  Can God trust you with your life?  Can God trust us with America and our place in the world?  I would go out on a limb and suggest here that until we do some personal and collective soul searching and take responsibility for our past and future choices, we won’t see the blessing that we so long for.  We choose destructive paths over and over and think just because we regret or even repent of those choices, that maybe we’ll get to skip the consequences that stem from them.  Not usually.  As humans, we don’t learn the deep lessons of life playing on the playground at recess.  We learn them in the classroom, in the day to day struggles of life that ultimately become our greatest teachers.  Although I firmly believe that common sense is not at all common, I would challenge all of us during these tough personal, economic and political times to engage our common sense and start asking the hard questions about ourselves that will lead us into a brighter tomorrow.  This summer can be a turning point for us personally and collectively.  I’ve lived long enough to know that even in summer, the livin’ isn’t really easy for much longer than the length of a well deserved vacation, but I do believe it can be full of purpose, full of hope, and full of the fullness that God promises to us when we open ourselves to receive the lesson.  I guess this is our “back to school”.

This is Driving Me Crazy!

__________ is driving me crazy! Go ahead, fill in the blank. At one time or another we’ve all had something that literally threatened to drive us to the brink of complete desperation. Perhaps it’s a spouse, a job, an employee, a divorce, a child spiraling downward into danger, financial ruin, reoccurring health issues, or legal injustice. Maybe it’s just an incurable loneliness. The list could go on and on. The point is that this is life and we all face disappointments. If you live any time at all, at times you will face what seem to be insurmountable obstacles to overcome.

I had a mother say to me just the other day that her daughter thought God was against her because the circumstances of her life weren’t working out the way she wanted. Through her tears, the mother expressed to me that she was concerned because she didn’t want her daughter to think that God worked that way. I have news for that mother. That’s exactly how God works. It’s those times of extreme disappointment and despair that take us out of our comfort zones and expose the areas within ourselves that need to be dealt with in order for us to grow emotionally and spiritually. You know the old saying that everything happens for a reason? It’s true. The reason those things happen are to teach us something - very often about ourselves.

I don’t believe these times happen just to drive us to despair. However, they do happen in order to drive us somewhere. Where it drives you is up to you. In 2 Corinthians 7:10 the apostle Paul is talking to the church in Corinth about a letter he had written to them that had distressed and upset them greatly. Later, after everything was resolved between them he said… “Distress that drives us to God does that. It turns us around. It gets us back in the way of salvation. We never regret that kind of pain. But those who let distress drive them away from God are full of regrets; end up on a deathbed of regrets.” (The Message)

As Paul continues, we see in verse 11 what distress can produce when we embrace the lesson. “You’re more alive, more concerned, more sensitive, more reverent, more human, more passionate, more responsible. Looked at from any angle, you’ve come out of this with purity of heart”. I learned a long time ago that God is far more concerned with our character than He is with our comfort, and let’s face it - it’s in the hard times that our character is truly revealed, both to ourselves and to others. Life is a process of maturity that will never happen as long as we live with an attitude of entitlement, always expecting others (including God) to serve us.

If you’ve read my book, you know I’m a poster-child for letting pain and disappointment drive me to such frustration and despair that there were a couple of times that I almost took my own life. It wasn’t until I finally came to the end of myself and let the pain drive me to a place of peace and surrender in God that the circumstances began changing. I think my life was a lot like repeating the same grade in school over and over. The teacher wouldn’t let me move on until I learned the lessons that were mine to learn. When I did, the same repeated circumstances that always led to the same point of frustration stopped “happening”. You see, these things weren’t just happening to me, I was choosing the same behavior over and over, expecting different results.

That mother I mentioned earlier has a heart that only wants the very best for her daughter, so that mother’s heart bleeds for her. You know what? There’s someone who bled for you too, and wants nothing more than the very best for your life. He wants to lead you into health. He wants you to know peace and joy and fulfillment, but this is a two-sided deal. If you reach out to Him, you will find Him waiting. All the work was already done by Him at Calvary. There’s nothing to earn, no hoops to jump through, no set of regulations to be achieved to find Him, no official church blessing necessary. He’s really that accessible. Just open your heart and ask Him to meet you.

So, I guess the question here is where are the disappointments and circumstances of your life going to drive you….to Him or away from Him? The choice is yours. The results of those choices will also be yours. I hope you choose growth.