I'm cheating...

I still have some editing tweaks on some posts, so to fulfill my weekly post quota and in the event of Halloween here's a throwback link to last year's Halloween post:


CLICK -->TRICK OR TREAT 2014


Enjoy and stay tuned for this year's Halloween post!



Heaven's slice is most definitely Octobers.

Screens Suck

Firstly, PLEASE be restfully assured that this post is completely hypocritical, and that I the author am fully aware of it.

Having said that, what I will go on to write I really do believe... I just usually try to put that belief in a headlock on the daily so I can scroll through my newsfeed in peace.

Anyways.

Screens suck. They literally do. They suck the energy out of ambition, they suck empathy out emotion, they suck time away from relationships, and they suck the living out of your life. They suck you in like you are the addict and they are the answer. And they're not, they're really really not. Yet it's so hard to stop! To stop scrolling, clicking, liking, commenting, watching, reading, sharing, typing, posting; it is just so hard! There's always something new that pops up - a big news story, a crusade to defend, a tangent to exploit, a video to lol at, photos to gawk at... It's all so enticing! But it's not real.

It's not real.

That photo album you're swiping through of a past acquaintance was taken a month ago at a lake you've never been.
That video you're watching was taken a few years back on a whole other continent than you reside.
That news story you're reading was completely made up purely to get you to visit their website.
That little girl will not get a heart transplant if she gets a million likes.
You will not be the lucky winner of $1000 given by a recent lotto winner.
You're crush will not reveal himself once you share a post...

None of it is your reality.

You know what's real? This:

















(Having trouble viewing? Look up about 10 inches and it should work.)

This, this is real. Isn't it glorious?!



Too many times I've gotten a tug, or a yell, or a swat that reminds me that the screen isn't real. Too many times I've spent my time scrolling through looking at photos of other children instead of looking at my own right in front of me. Too many times, and I realize I'm seriously addicted to a screen, a stupid iPad screen. I feel so much energy and motivation when I'm out of it's clutches. I'm more patient of a mother, I'm more kind, more happy, and way more fun. When my battery power dies and it's plugged in in the back room for hours unnoticed I feel so much more solidarity and peace in my home and in my heart, and I know my children feel it too. My focus is on them and not on a screen.

It's not to say there isn't a lot of good that can come from the internet, but it can be a hard habit to break when we use it in a way that gets us out of our real life and into a false reality that's so mind distractingly consuming. This technology that is at our finger tips should be used to enhance the reality we are in, but not take us out of it. (Things like dancing around the house to music off of youtube or looking at the recipe from which you are making supper, etc.)




Heaven's slice is knowing when you are an addict... and doing something about it!

PS click here to view some addiction videos that are pretty insightful "12 steps to Change"- CAUTION they deal with mature subject matter.

And just like that...

my little baby...

is now a man.

Heaven's slice is this little one... and mustache soothers.

Faithmily

As Thanksgiving is now here, I thought long and hard about the one thing I am most grateful for. Even though I have roughly a billion trillion things to choose from, it was clearly "FAITHMILY."

(I couldn't choose between faith and family because for me I can't have one without the other... so I made up a new awesome word to blend the two. Isn't it amaze balls?!)

My faith is what has kept me going and my family is the rewarded benefit.

Oh how I love them!

Heaven's slice is being grateful.

The Body-After-Baby Lie

"Childbearing ruins your body"

This is a common well believed lie and it effects so many, even me. Days, weeks, sometimes months after the precious moment that you get to hold your new infant, it hits you - your body isn't the way you remember it prior to being pregnant. Why not? The baby's out now, what gives? Oh ya, because childbearing makes your body a flabby, droopy, ugly mess. Let us all bash those dark embedded belly scars, the disgustingly stretched skin and excess fat. After all, it's just a pregnant thing all of us as women have to go through right?

WRONG! So wrong. For so many reasons:

#1 The words disgusting, ugly, flabby, fat etc. do not and cannot apply to a body that has grown a human life. A HUMAN LIFE. It has housed, nourished, guarded, protected, and covered the most helpless, defenceless, and precious of all beings for 9 months straight. How could that ever be considered ugly? If there was an institution that had been able to accomplish this task, no one would ever walk by the building calling it ugly, least especially it's owner. It would be celebrated, using correct terms like 'glorious' and 'wonderful' to give it an adjective.

#2 To bare a child is a gift not every woman gets in this life. Think for a minute, just one solid minute, what it would be like to know that you could never bear a child. Put yourself in those shoes as a bystander of a conversation involving a mother pushing her tiny babes in the stroller talking on the phone about how fat and ugly she is from having these infants, the laughing speech of a body she now hates. You would be holding back tears - bitter, devastating, angry, broken, silent tears. There would be pleas with God on how you would never criticize a childbearing body if you could just be given the chance to have a baby of your own. There holds the knowledge of what the body-after-baby truly is, behind the eyes of a mother who can't bare one. (ps - adoption is a magnificent thing!) 

#3 The world is listening. Ever wonder why some women don't want to have children? Why some choose to abort? They listen. They listen to you, to me, to all of us that have given birth and how we speak about our bodies. The turmoil we go through, the unsightly scars they leave behind, the irreversible "ugly" we see ourselves to be now. They listen to the lies we speak instead of the truth we hold in our arms. They are listening, are we speaking the truth? Because the truth is that having a body-after-baby is the most dazzling, magnificent, divine, and BEAUTIFUL thing we have. 

Even if our baby was given to another mother, or did not survive due to an unforeseen circumstance, having a body that bore life is among, if not thee most miraculous things, period (sorry men). It is noble and it is good. It is so good. Do we realize it? I know I need to. 

Society has ruined the most sacred, exquisite thing a body can do by spreading false rumours on it's ugliness and it must be stopped with the truth.

A body-after-baby changes so much 1week, 3mo, 1 year, even 2 years postpartum. But honestly, with having such a profoundly influential scar on my heart from birthing miracles, I think I'd feel a little ripped if I didn't at least have some sort of physical mark to show for it.

Heaven's slice is knowing how incomparably beautiful a body-after-baby is.