Why Advent?

It's cold here this week. 

Really cold. Scrape the ice off your car cold and do the whole I can see this little tiny slot, cold. 

Finally beginning to feel like the Christmas season although I hate this weather. The cold really is not what I would choose but it is the season we are in and it's Advent. 

The season of waiting. The season on wonder. The season on hope, peace, joy and love. 

As I sit here writing, early this morning, I have to wonder "why"? 

Why do we celebrate the coming of Christ? How do we find hope and peace and joy and love in a world that is tearing itself apart? How do we experience the miracle of the tiny babe born by Mary?

I preached on the 2nd week of Advent, peace, this past Sunday looking at all that was happening in the world. We talked about the shootings on naval bases, poverty throughout all of the world, violence that seeps into people's everyday life that some of us are so far removed from we assume it doesn't touch our lives.

Yet does it? Of course it does. Everyone that is suffering, everyone that lives in fear, everyone that is fighting and searching for justice in their life; they are all of our responsibility as the tiny babe will grow into a man and tell us all of this. 

And we seem to forget it from time to time or only focus on the realities of the world at certain times of the year when we are truly called to remember the coming Christ, to remember the Resurrected Christ and the Very Spirit of God each and every day in our lives and not just when the season seems appropriate.

Advent is needed and longed for every single day that we wake up with a fresh start a head of us. 

Every single time that we meet a person in need.

Every time we are told no b/c of our gender, race, culture, gender identity, socio-economic level

Every time we are made to feel less than any bit of who we are; named and called beloved by God.

Isaiah prophesied that a child will come, a tiny babe, to lead the whole world to this place of peace where even the wolf and the lamb will be in peace together. Where prey will not know predator

Where people will be one and be with God and where the true miracle of the world will happen; the true Advent, the true start of a new beginning that is with God and of God. 

We can sit around and wait every single year for Advent to come or we can live out Advent every day. 

We can stand up for one another, we can feed each other, we can clothe each other, we can tell each other about the love of God that surrounds us, holds us and names us. 

We can be the light of Christ for each other, not just on the longest night of the year but each and every day that we are called to be God's children and called to care for the least of these. 

So the answer to my question- why advent? 

Advent because advent changes everything. Advent reminds us of what we are longing for in our lives, the peace and tranquility that comes with the birth of Christ

And that even when we are in the midst of deep despair, grief, illness and everything that gets in the way of us seeing God in our lives... Advent reminds us that God is there

That God came in the form of the tiny babe, born to a woman and a man that were incredibly scared of what it meant and how they were going to raise the Christ child.

Lean into the uncertainty just as Mary and Joseph did, into the unknown and find the love of God in your life so you can go out and share it with all.

Lean into Advent today and everyday and as you do remember that you are enough, you are worthy and you are beloved.

-Pastor Ali 

You BELONG

Growing up and in my early adult years, I always struggled with feeling as though I didn't quite belong. I wanted people to like me, I wanted to feel included, I wanted the affirmations that I was enough. 

Many of us go through that in our lives. We care what people think about us more than we care about ourselves. We care about making others happy instead of making ourselves happy.

I don't know exactly when I realized this was no way to live but at some point in the past 5 years, since my dad passed and I went into ministry I realized that I had to love myself a little bit more.

By loving myself, I no longer cared and worried about making others happy and ensuring that I "belonged"

In recent months, I have become even more aware of this.

Two months ago, I quit taking anxiety medication that I had taken since my dad passed and it is as though something inside of me woke up

A fire inside of me that was missing for so long and wanted to come out and it certainly has.

I not only have to come to the conclusion that in order for me to truly care for others, I must love myself but also that if people do not care for me or to be around me.... this is hard for me to say... That's OK and I no longer feel a need to let it control my life in ways that it had before

I have felt the most free I have ever felt and I also have felt the most fire inside of me that I have ever felt 

Say something or do something to one of my kids- yeah, I will no longer hold my tongue and watch it happen

Treat me poorly- yep, going to say something

Treat OTHERS poorly for just being them.. you guessed it I am going to say something

This fire inside of me is not one I want to go out. It is one that is giving me the permission I have always struggled to give myself to stand up to people and say that you can't treat people in a certain way. To say something when someone is being flat out rude and to not allow people to talk down to me for being a woman or younger than them and most of all to not make me feel as though I am less of a mom than them... Oh and don't mess with my kids because this mama bear will come out and she is fierce, strong and filled with fire

We all want to feel that connection and that we belong

Most of us will live our lives trying to please others so that we can be in the cool group and most of us will try so hard it will be at the detriment of ourselves and our own happiness.

Perhaps instead of trying to belong, instead of trying to make others happy that aren't trying to do the same for you... 

Perhaps we stop that

We stop and look at ourselves and tell ourselves every single morning "I Belong". 

I belong

I belong to myself

I belong to my own happiness

I belong to my own worth

I belong to my own value

I belong to the Kingdom of God that is so overwhelming beautiful and filled with abundance, love and grace and I belong to that Kingdom and that cool group before I even believe

God named us good

God told us that God wants us to live a life of abundance 

God called us beloved

That is the group I want to belong to know and know with my whole heart I do. The group that stands up for one another, the group that doesn't try to please everyone, the group that is simply present in the fact that we are all just living our lives doing the very best we can 

Because in the end we will all be one together, with God and for God and the other stuff will no longer matter.

Find that fire inside of you that forces you to believe all of this and know that when you are struggling;

You belong

You matter

You are enough

You are worthy 

You are beloved

-Pastor Ali 

(oh and don't be afraid to use your voice. God gave you that too and it is powerful)

- and one more thing. I truly believe in the power of medication and know that for a time in my life it saved me. I hope if you read this and are one medications for anxiety or depression that you know I am not suggesting you get off of those. Absolutely not. They are life saving for many of us and I am grateful that I know they will be there for me if I find myself needing them again. 

Resisting in the Wilderness

I have been in a wilderness period of my life lately.

I think we are always in the wilderness trying to discern the next best step in our faith, our families and for me the church I serve.

Being in the wilderness is not always a bad thing.

It is a time for me to reflect, to look at the things that maybe are not going well and examine what to do to bring fruit to the work I am doing.

I find the wilderness to be humbling at times. A time when we realize that maybe the things we have been doing in the past aren't working and that we need to move over, through and past certain mountains in order to move forward.

In this particular wilderness moment for me, I find myself resisting.

Resisting the way in which the world says I should act as a mother, a wife, a preacher, a woman

Resisting the way I am being taught in certain classes and challenging the theology of people who possibly have never been challenged.

Resisting what the UMC voted to changed in Jan. 2020 and trying to find a way over that mountain and storm that is coming.

I am resisting; and instead of it being a time of confusion and worry; I love it

I am challenging myself in ways that I never have before, standing up to people I never thought I could because I feel the fire of women like Shiprah and Puah in me.

Do you know these women?

It is a story in scripture that is often not preached but if it wouldn't have been for these women many of the Hebrew male babies would have been killed.

Pharaoh started to get worried that the Hebrew people, the slaves of Egypt, were going to get too big and thus start an uprising so he thought if the midwives just killed all the male babies the problem would be solved.

Well, he didn't count on Shiprah and Puah 

You see, they valued the life of those babies and were in those wilderness moment.

Having to decide if they should follow Pharaoh or do something a little different. 

They let the babies live and they told Pharaoh that it wasn't their fault b/c Hebrew women have babies much faster than Egyptian women and they couldn't get there in time.

Shiprah and Puah had fire in them; the fire given to us by God to change things in this world

The fire to resist what we are "supposed" to do 

Shiprah and Puah are two of the first women we see in scripture that are resisters, as they are early on in the Biblical narrative, and they pave the way for many women resisters to come.

Including all female clergy that are resisting this week to the comments made by John MacArthur. 

John MacArthur is an influential Pastor and when asked what he thought of author and Pastor Beth Moore he said he thinks she should "go home" because God did not intend for women to be Pastors.

He says that women are not feminist for equality; that they just want power. The power to Preach, the power to be CEO's, the power to lead educational institutions

And he is right, women do want that power because men have had it for themselves for too long 

To all the female preachers feeling in the wilderness after this comment, resist it.

Resist it and let everyone know that you are called by the very God that formed you in your mother's womb, that named you beloved and called you to Preach the Word of God for the people of God.

I think I kind of like being in the wilderness

In the wilderness, I am finding a new way of standing up for myself

In the wilderness, I am finding ways to humble myself in the presence of God

In the wilderness, I am finding that we are really on a wilderness journey for most of our lives; hoping for the day that God will lead us to our own promised land and that day will be beautiful, that day all will be equal and that day Shiprah and Puah will be there to greet me; 

And tell me that I preached the gospel and resisted just as they without fear of anyone and that is a holy resistance. 

One that Jesus too will see and know that he gave me the very Spirit to do so. 

Blessings to you all in your wilderness journey and always remember through all of it; you are enough, you are worthy and you are beloved.

-Pastor Ali 

The Shame Tree

There is this tree in a church that at first glance is quite beautiful.

It's fake and is on one of the main walls. It has bright colors on it; all the perfect colors of fall and the leaves and hands that are on the tree have names on it.

It's stewardship month for most churches- the time of year that a lot of Pastors (myself included) dread because it is the time that we have to talk about money. It takes money to run a church, yes I know this, but talking about money is uncomfortable and while it is a part of my job it can send people into a deep pit of shame.

This particular tree is for anyone that increased their giving or began pledging for the first time. I couldn't quite figure out what about it bothered me until yesterday.

As I looked at the tree, I felt shame in the pit of my stomach. The thoughts went through my mind "if I attended here would my name be up there?" "would my family be able to increase our pledge?"

And the truth is, not likely. Living the life we live right now is hard financially and not because we live extravagantly. Cost of living is up, prices of houses have risen, daycare fees, school fees, etc.. it all adds up. 

Some people are struggling to pay medical bills, dealing with the loss of a job or a spouse that provided more income- it is all hard and it is the reality of most people's lives. 

Walking by this tree sent me into a shame spiral and I have to believe I am not the only one. The tree symbolizes the very essence of what people fear church is. That church is about money, taking your money and then glorifying those that give said money. Making the "less than" feel unworthy and perhaps like they do not belong.

Jesus preached against this very thing- against making people feel any less than a child of God. Jesus threw over the tables in the temple for they were mis-using the temple and what it was built for. Jesus got angry at how the people were being taxed, how the rich were only getting richer while the poor were just trying to get by.

When we glorify the wealthy or the ones that are just a bit wealthier than we are; it begins to send people into a dark place and away from God. Making them truly believe that they are not worthy enough, that maybe they don't belong and that God doesn't love them enough.

Stewardship, while necessary, is not just about the money and it is certainly not about rewarding the ones that give the most. The person that pledges the least and the one most are equal in the eyes of God and at our church. Both people have gifts beyond money to give. Both people have devoted their life to Christ and both people are worthy of being recognized for the work that they do.

This stewardship month, I promise to all of my congregants- I will talk about money but I will do everything possible to not make you feel as though you are not worthy because you are not able to give more. I will stress the importance of not just our monetary gifts but our spiritual gifts which are needed more and more every day in this broken world.

Being a good steward is taking care of your church, God's creation and each other. 

Do this every single day without allowing anyone to tell you that you are not good enough or you don't do enough. 

Go out and be the light of God to those in the world that need it the most and you my friend, will begin to see the change that the very light can do. 

We are all worthy, we are all enough and we are beloved.

-Pastor Ali 

Life has me...GOING CRAZY!

May is always a busy time of year. From graduations to weddings to end of the school events. Did you know that there are about 10,000 things to do at the end of the year in preschool? No? I didn't either. Apparently there is about every opportunity to be involved and to make yourself feel like a bad parent for missing things and/or not being able to attend things.

Now, let's be clear. I know I am a good mom. In fact, I know I am a great mom. My kids are fed, dressed, usually clean and have a loving home. Yet, society puts all this pressure on us to be "perfect" in an imperfect world.

Who has time for the Kansas kindest citian event, the field trip, field day, art show, talent show...the list goes on.

Plenty of places and ways for you to feel like you have failed as a parent.

I recently found out that ordering a yearbook in KINDERGARTEN is a thing. A real thing that most parents do. To be honest, when I saw the order form back in FEBRUARY, I ignored it. What kindergartner needs a yearbook? Then I was told that there is a yearbook signing party... oh crap! My kid will be THAT kid- the one you strive so hard to make sure your kid isn't.

My first thought, I'll just pull him from school that day. He will never know what he missed and I will be the COOL mom for letting him out early. Then I really started to think about it- I don't have time to pull him from school so what am I going to do? Henry's teacher lovingly told me that all kids will have something for kids to sign so my kid will be walking around with the stapled pieces of paper that say "autograph" while others have a book...

Deep breath... It will be okay. Henry will be OK. The kids are OK.

As we start to get ready for summer, deep breaths are going to be essential for all of us parents. The kids will be home, the house will be a mess, the outdoor toys will not be picked up (mine never are) and they may live off of fruit snacks and cheetos all summer but they will be okay. Everything will be okay because our kids know we love them, know we always want the best for them and know that they are loved.

SNL did a great skit on the "perfect" parent. Watch it here and enjoy a good laugh knowing that ALL of us are perfectly imperfect, enough, worthy and beloved.

-Pastor Ali

No, Not MY Daughter!

In public and at school we all have the "perfect" children. We strive to make sure they have the perfect clothes, the perfect lunch and that we are the perfect parents. When our children throw a fit in the middle of Target we give them our phone or just buy the toy they want to avoid the looks from others. When our child is acting like a child during an important moment, we threaten to take away their new favorite toy or ELSE.

When in reality none of us have the perfect children. None of us have it all together and we do all these things for what?

We do them for ourselves because we live in a world where we are terrified of what people think about us, that people will judge us and that we will never be good enough.

Well, as my dear friend Tiffany Baker has often put it, the jig is up and when we all just accept that we are all human and we are all imperfect, the world would become a lot more perfect.

Yet, not everyone has had the luck of being in a mom's group with Tiffany leading that is so incredibly important it allows you to actually let go of these things and just go with the phrase "the kids are alright".

My kids do not have the perfect clothes. Most days, Henry wears pants that have holes in them. I can't keep up with how rough he is on his clothes, so if they rip he wears them. I don't fix them- no one actually has time for that.

Their lunches consist of whatever I can find to throw in their lunch box and when Tannie now has a tantrum in the middle of Target I just stare at her and say things like "wow, who's kid is that?" Or you know, I just give her my phone.

This week, Tannie had two not so awesome reports. Now, let's be honest, she is 2 and in kids day out. Having a bad report in kids day out will not set her up for failure and she will still likely get into a good college but there is still something about the look on the teachers face and the words "Do you have a second?" You suddenly become a little child and feel as though you are in serious trouble. "Sure", I said.

Well, it turns out for the past two days Tannie has hit and pushed her classmates and had to sit out a total of 5 times. My first reaction was honest.. "Oh ok. Well, hmm..." I didn't know what to say. My daughter? That adorable one that is currently screaming me for more peanut butter as I write this hit others? Of course not...

I had been waiting for this statement for the whole school year. Let's be real. Tannie is Tannie. She is smart, she is spunky and she doesn't let anyone stand in her way. Her teacher expressed that it is often when others are in her space or looking at her and she wants to be left alone.

The mama in me gave myself a high five. At 2 years old, my daughter knows her boundaries and how to tell people to leave her alone. But, I guess doing that by hitting that isn't okay in kids day out....


Our kids are not perfect but they are perfectly imperfect and when we let go of the "perfection" we all buy into as parents and just embrace the reality that 2 year olds hit, 6 year olds rip their pants and that life is just messy, we teach our kids a lot more value and worth than we know. We really teach them about being themselves, we teach them that their voice matters and we teach them that material things are not what life is about.

Don't get me wrong. My kids get the phone and there are times they get the "talk" before we go places but as I learn more about being a mom and myself, I am realizing that their imperfections are the perfect things about them.

Always know you are enough, you are worthy and you are beloved.

Pastor Ali

There is New Life- happy birthday

If you have ever lost someone, there are phrases that are the worst to hear. Ones that make your skin crawl, that make you want to jump up and down and scream that they are wrong, that make you cry and cry and anger you even further. If you are wondering if you are at fault for saying some of these...well, the answer is yes.

We all are.

We have all said the wrong thing when to someone we care about when someone dies.

"Oh it's for the best" Really? The best? Death?

"Well, at least they aren't suffering any longer" Umm..excuse me, they actually weren't suffering before

"It was their time" their time for what?

"Oh now they are in a better place"

That last one. That one is the one that used to make me so angry. ME. A PASTOR! After my dad died, I didn't care to hear that he was in a better place.

Absolutely not, because he wasn't supposed to be there yet. He died out of the natural order. Both of his parents were still living. He was only 56.

The list goes on and on. All the reasons that he shouldn't be in that better place.

As time has gone one, 5 years, I still wonder about that statement. Yes, I know he is in a better place but why can't he still be here and then go there in awhile?

I will never know the answer to that question, all I can do is have faith that he is there, that he is loving life and that he is living his new life to it's fullest potential because he is now sitting with God at the long table that Jesus went to prepare for us. The table with his parents, his friends, his family that are all there.

New life, new births, birthdays.

There are signs of new life all around us on a daily basis. For me, it is the green poking it's head through the dirt in my garden. My cousin, Brittany's beautiful baby. My children growing into little people.

They are all signs of hope, hope that there is new life after death, that there is something better out there and that there is something bigger than us all. Without them, without the hope of the "new" we would lose hope in the God that loves us, saves us and reminds us of this new life every single day.

As time goes on, the pain of losing someone starts to soften. It becomes more of who you are and not what you went through.

We all wear our pain and our brokenness in the way that we live our lives and it is what makes us beautiful. It makes us real, it makes us human.

As the season of Lent goes on, we are leaning into what that pain is and how to continue living with it vs living as though it never happened or that it was "the way things were meant to be".

God calls us to live a life of abundance, even through our pain, even through our brokenness and even through the loss of the ones you love the most.

We are invited this Lent to embrace this invitation and surrender to God- surrender it all and envision a life where our pain makes us beautiful and we look at ourselves every single day and know we are enough, we are worthy and we are beloved.

Happy birthday, Dad. I hope it's a great one.

Tell everyone hi- I hope you ARE living your best life in that better place.

-Pastor Ali

My Happy Place

As a child, we went every spring break to Lawrence where my mom's sister and her family lived. I grew up in Wichita, until I was 14, so going to Lawrence was always a big deal. My best friend was there, my cousin Brittany and my brother had his best friend, our cousin Skyler.

For a whole week we got to be with our cousins, doing whatever we wanted and I would imagine driving our mothers' crazy. As an adult and mother, I think they must have been crazy to be in a house with all the kids for a whole week. But I have come to realize that if you are in your happy place it really doesn't matter. My mom's happy place was with her sister and for us kids it was being with our cousins.

My sister, Paige, always went 20 miles down the road to our Nani and Nana's house. She got to the point where she was too "cool" to hang out with Brittany and I, she probably still is, and would go spend the week with our grandparents. During her time there she and our Nani would go flower shopping and spend hours planting flowers and learning about them. I never had any interest but as an adult something shifted.

Henry is on his fist real spring break. I was determined to make this week great for him, the one I remembered from my childhood. He has had sleepovers, been to his cousins and had a great week so far.

My happy place has changed over the years, no offense Becky and Britt, but I have taken on the love of going to my Nani's house, talking to her on the phone and calling her one of my best friends. Although I got sick this week with an awful cough, we still ventured down to my Nani's and I got to spend time in my happy place, which turns out to be a place of safety and joy for my children as well.

My Nani, being almost 81, goes at the speed of a 30 year old. Really, she has more energy than I do and when you go to Nani's you do not just sit around and do things. Oh no, there is a list of things to do and they will all be accomplished within the time you are there.

We ventured to many places yet the best one and the one that I know my Nani loved the most was getting our pansies. As a child, I never cared about flowers, that was Paige. Paige was the one that shared that love but it has shifted over the years and I am obsessed. My Nani and I began talking in Feb. about when we could go get them and we finally did. And we didn't stop there, we planted pansies, made fairy gardens and just spent time together talking and being present.


My happy place is with my family and when I get a chance to relax, spend time with my family and include gardening, there isn't much (even the tantrums of a 2 year old) that can bring me down. I now understand why my mom and her sister didn't care that us kids were running around like crazy for a whole week, they had each other and they treasured that time together through every meltdown, tantrum and fight us kids had, they were in their happy place.

I hope you all can find your happy place this lent. Find the place that makes you feel the closest to God and spend time there. Because when we do that, we are truly able to lean into our belovedness and live the life of abundance God wants for each of us.

Many blessings to you as spring starts to come- Know you are enough, you are worthy and you are beloved.

-Pastor Ali

Leaving a Legacy

Lent is upon us. It is a time of year to reflect on our lives and to look with God toward the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

As Jesus is approaching the 40 days before his death, he is ministering to those in his midst, he is showing his true divinity to his disciples and he is preparing to leave a legacy of hope, grace and resurrection for all of God's people.

What is our legacy? What will you leave in this world for your children? Do you think about that often?

Over the past few weeks, I have been trying to put into words how I feel about the decision made at the United Methodist General Conference and what legacy this will leave for our children and future generations.

The church is at a stand still. When I am asked what do we do or what is next, I simply say "I don't know". And that is the truth, I don't know but here is what I do know

The UMC was founded on grace, love, mercy and acceptance of all people. John Wesley fought for the rights of those that didn't have a voice and wanted the church to be a place where all people felt welcomed and a church with open minds, open hearts and open doors.

The clergy are not the only ones tasked with the legacy of the church. All of us, every single member, child and clergy have to work together to be the church that God wants us to be. To leave a legacy for our children that they are proud of and not one of hate, exclusion and punishment.

My children love our church. They feel welcomed there, they are loved there and they run around that place knowing it is theirs and that the people inside of it will help to raise them to be followers of Christ with open hearts, open minds and open doors.

I want that to be the legacy we leave. The legacy of love. Love can be hard when we don't understand the other side. Love can be hard when we have been hurt by the other person but love is possible when we have the love of Christ in our hearts allowing us to see the true humanity in all of God's people.

I choose to leave a legacy of love, inclusion and hope for my kids. My hope and prayer this lenten season is that the church and all people in the church are able to look within themselves, to have true self-reflection and to surrender all their fears to God.

When we give it God, when we allow God to hold us and guide us there really is nothing we can't do and I strongly believe that. Trust that God is a loving God, a God of inclusion and a God of resurrection so that we can go out and be that to the world.

Do all this knowing you are enough, you are worthy and you are beloved.

-Pastor Ali

It is All About Balance

1 Corinthians 3: 16

"Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in your midst?"

Our family recently started going to the gym. If you know us, you know that this is new and not the "norm" or has ever been the norm. Now, before Paul met me, he did exercise and was really fit from the police academy.. then we got married and we each settled into our new life as a married couple and exercise and keeping ourselves "fit" just didn't fit in there.

Then came these kids of ours. It turns out that a baby really changes your body, oh and turning 30. 

In last three years, it has become apparent that if I want to maintain the way I looked when I was younger, I was going to have to do something about it.

Really it just started to make more sense to me as I started to reflect on my own life, my own well being and what kind of example I want to set for my kids. I want them to see me fit, I want them to see exercise as something fun and I want us to be healthy for each other so we can live a long life of abundance as God wants us all too. 

We joined the gym in November and honestly haven't missed a work out since then. Once we started, we got hooked. Not only is it a great work out...BUT there is CHILDCARE. Like there is a place where you can drop off your kids and say "have fun" and they love it and they get worn out and you get to be ALONE and exercise. I don't know why this mom secret has been kept from me for so long. Or maybe I was told it but chose not to listen.

I am aware that changing your way of life, leaning into your messiness and brokenness is about balance and a want within yourself. 2 years ago, you couldn't have gotten me into the gym but something inside of me changed. I started to see myself as this temple that God gave me, a body that God gave me to take care of so that I can live my life of abundance and belovedness to the fullest. 

This past month, there has been a competition of sort at the gym called "melt". While I do not really care about the competition it created a space for myself and two good friends to work out together and to explore some of the different group classes. I have shied away from the classes out of fear of what others may think... here is the truth. No one care.

Absolutely no one cares

No one is watching you and if they are it is because you are doing so amazing that they want to copy you, so no one is watching me

And no one cares

The group classes have pushed me further than I knew possible and have really opened my eyes to the different muscle groups that I didn't even know needed to be stretched.

One of my favorite classes is called centergy. It is a combination of yoga and pilates and really helps to stretch out all of the work you have done in other classes. Now, I will say that it isn't just stretching. Oh no. There is this whole 5 minute plank series and you do not just plank. Oh no, you plant on your elbows, move your legs side to side, move up to your hands and do this about 1,000 times. It pushes you. The first few classes I couldn't do it and I didn't push myself because I wanted to ease into what my body could do.

Tonight. Tonight I did it. I did the whole class without any trouble. I finally found the rhythm and then the last 15 minutes is spent on restoration followed by 5 minutes of Savasana. You simply lie on your back and breathe, eyes closed, letting go of all the negativity and breathing in the beauty of the world and what you just accomplished.

I left tonight feeling full. Feel connected to God and feeling connected to my body and how it needs to be taken care of. 

And then I picked up the kids. I took a deep breath and we got in the car. The screaming started pretty quick and I started to think about dinner... my zen started to go. One kid only likes candy and cookies, the other sits and eats but it takes forever and you have to count bites while they complain. 

It is all about balance. The balance of finding your zen and how to maintain it. 

I maintained that zen, sure did. The kids are currently eating McDonalds and I am zenfully writing this blog without a care in the world.

God wants us all to take care of ourselves so that we can go out into the world and care for others and sometimes that means giving in to what you can not control and maintaining your zen by going through the drive-thru.

No matter where you are in your life, how active you are or aren't always know you are enough, you are valued and you are beloved.

-Pastor Ali 

Unconditional Love and Change

Over the past few weeks, I have been doing a sermon series on Love. While most likely thought this series was created for Valentine's Day, they are all learning that I had a different idea in mind.

Love. What does love mean to all of us? What does love mean to people that haven't experienced love? Does love look more like violence? Does love scare people? Does love prohibit us from fully experiencing our lives out of fear of what may happen?

The United Methodist Church will face a vote at a special General Conference that starts Feb. 23rd. Bishops, delegates (the people that get to vote), clergy and lay people will gather in St. Louis, MO from all over the world to vote on the issue of human sexuality and the church. This vote has been up for discussion since the 1980's when the world of psychiatric deemed homosexuality was not a mental health disorder. Since then, the church has gone back and forth on the issue. Should they allow gay clergy? Should people of the same-sex get to marry in the church?

I spoke last Sunday on how we become the church in a world that tries to shut the church out. In a world that views the church as negative and in a world that puts people in different boxes based on their race, socio-economic status, gender and who they love.

How do we be the church? The one the first Apostles built? The one that is about change, the love of God and the Good News that Christ brought?

Love

Love

Love

I recently spoke to someone about the one-church plan that is going before the conference. This is the plan that the majority of the Bishops in the church are supporting. It is the plan that allows each local church to decide. It sounds simple enough- you decide what your church is going to do. Yet this plan still brings up questions for a lot of people. How does that work? What church am I suppose to go if I believe ___? Will churches leave? Will people leave our church?

Love

I just keep saying that word over and over again in my head. The church is at a crossroads and what the church does next will define the church for generations to come. Generations that will likely look at us and wonder why this mattered. I look back on giving the women the right to preach and wonder why it took so long- in awe that it took the church over 1950 years to finally make that possible when some of the most powerful people in scripture are...WOMEN! (getting side-tracked...)

So what do we do as a church? How do we keep going?

We love our way through it.

We love God, we love the church, we love our neighbors and we love all of God's people just as God tells us to through God's son, Jesus Christ.

Jesus came to this world to save us from ourselves, to show us what true love is and how to live that out in our everyday lives.

Jesus suffered and was killed at the hands of his own people yet even knowing this would happen he did the work of God. He healed the leper, he prayed with and taught women, he opposed the doings of the scribes and pharisees, he turned over the tables in the temple.

People fought against everything Jesus did and had to say but he stayed strong and went with one message.

Love.

Jesus is the church. Jesus is UNCONDITIONAL LOVE AND CHANGE. Jesus came to this world to change it so that we may all live a life of abundance and know our identity in God as God's beloved children.

Love. That really is the only way.

We continue to love and the church and all of us will get through this, all while knowing we are enough, we are worthy and we are beloved.

-Pastor Ali

Where Does the time Go?

I can remember as a child sitting in my room often wondering "when will I ever grow up?" I was likely in trouble when these thoughts were going through my mind and wanted more than anything to grow up, get out of my parents’ house and get to do WHATEVER I wanted. 

It is amazing how time works.

As a child it seems as though you will never grow up. You long for the days that you have freedom. To be 16, 18. To go off to college. 

Then you get to college and you simply want time to slow down. You want to soak up every moment of the life you are living, you want to be young and carefree in this time of your life yet it goes by so fast that you wonder "where did the time go?"

Then you get out of school and life really begins. The life you were longing for as a child is here and at times it is everything you ever dreamed of and then at times you just want to go back to being a child, where people took care of you and you did not have to worry about bills, taking care of your own kids or worrying about what is going to happen to the people you love. 

Time. It goes so fast when we don't want it to and slows down when we long for it to just speed up.

Yesterday, marked 5 years since the death of my Father. 

In many ways it seems like I haven't seen or talked to my dad in 10 years and in others it seems as though we were all just sitting around my parents kitchen table laughing and living our best life. 

5 years. I would give anything to go back to the month before my dad passed and to just have a little bit longer. To realize that this was happening and to spend as much time as possible with my dad. To say all the things, I long to say to him. But that isn't how time works or life. 

I sit and think now a lot about the times with my dad. About how I was so very loved by him and so many of my friends wished they had him as a dad. 

He was the most of most cool dads and still to this day his legacy lives on through all of us.

I see him in my nephew Ben, the way Ben laughs and is kind of sneaky when he is being silly. I see him Henry, in Henry's worry for the world and his family. I see him in Tannie, in Tannie's willingness to do just about anything. 

Even when people leave this world, they still live in each of us. It is as though a piece of them has been passed down to all the generations to continue living so that their best life can still go on.

5 years. 

In 5 years, our lives have changed drastically. I became a Pastor- WHAT?!?! Paige had Ben. I had Tannie. Henry is in school. Evan got married. Mom moved. We all changed our jobs. 

While all that has changed and we are all incredibly blessed and at peace with the loss of our dad, time still doesn't take away the pain. There is a saying "time heals all wounds" and while time does heal, it doesn't take away the wounds. 

Our wounds are a part of us, they help to make up the story of who we are and without them or when we "forget" about them, we are denying who we are. 

We are broken, we are messy, we live chaotic lives, but we are God's children; enough, beloved and worthy of this life we are living.

Time may not heal all wounds and we may always long to go back to different times in our lives but know that living in the present, welcoming the pain of what you have been through and believing that God is with you through it all will allow you to embrace the days ahead without fear. 

My dad, the rock of our family, will always live on in each of us and that is because he shaped who we are, taught us how to love and never gave up on us. Even in the afterlife, as he is sitting at the table with God, he with us-guiding each of us and loving us through all our sorrow and joy because it is through him that we learned to love this life we have been given. 

Embrace today, live today with courage and love knowing your worth, knowing you are enough and knowing you are beloved.

-Pastor Ali 

Dad and baby Henry

Stuck

Today I feel stuck. Do you ever feel that way? I haven't had writers block since I started preaching every Sunday. When asked "What is your sermon writing like", I always reply that it is one of my favorite things to do and it always just flows out of me and wherever I am, no matter what I am doing, I will sit down and write it out. 

Not this week. This week I am stuck.

I am stuck on what to preach about, I am stuck on what to talk about, I am stuck on how to tie it all together. So I sit here, at my desk, writing this blog post- STUCK. 

All around my office, I have words of inspiration. In the car, I listened to music that would surely give me a direction, I have laid awake the past nights thinking about it. 

And...you guessed it, I am stuck!

Why do we get stuck in our lives? Why do we all of a sudden see no direction? When things are going just right, when everything we do just flows naturally and we know the next steps- why do we then have absolutely no idea what we are doing and get completely stuck?

I wonder if that is the Holy Spirit telling us to look a different direction. That maybe the way we have always done things, the lens to which we have always looked through needs to change. Things need to be adjusted so that we can see clearly what path we are on, what direction to go down. 

It is amazing how God works in our lives like that. How one minute we are trucking along, doing everything the same way, living our lives, doing the work that we do then...BAM out of nowhere here comes God to turn things upside down, to point you in a different direction, to force you to look outside of YOURSELF and to look through a different lens. Perhaps it is a lens that leads to a new outlook on the world, perhaps it will be a lens that helps to define what your life is really about and what your purpose is or perhaps it is simply a lens that just need a little bit of adjusting, a little fine tuning to get you back to where you are supposed to be. 

Whatever it is that is going on with me, whatever "rut" I am stuck in, I just hope I can open my eyes to what God is saying to me, to open my heart and mind to the word of the Gospel and to allow the Holy Spirit to guide me to what needs to be said this week. 

If not, I hope everyone that attends church enjoys watching live streams of other Pastors because maybe they will know what to say this weekend :-)

Enjoy your weekend, apparently this bitter cold is going to turn warm! And always know that even when you are stuck, even when you feel as though you can't move forward, God is right with you telling you that you are enough, you are worthy and you are beloved.

Blessings,

Pastor Ali