Towards Eden

Today we talk about common crutches that feel easier to cling to than who we really should be clinging to - God! Life is hard, and we can't do it in our own power. Truth is, we are biologically wired to never want to feel discomfort, but we need to rewire our brains to run to God at the slightest feeling of discomfort! We share some stories from our experiences, and tackle a few commonly utilized crutches. If you're struggling with a crutch in your life, reach out to us - we want to pray with you! Today's Verses: Ephesians 5:18 Proverbs 20:1 Proverbs 23:29-35 1 Corinthians 6:10 Galatians 5:19-21 Romans 2:8 Romans 8:5-8 1 Timothy 2:9

Hi Friends! We are so excited to dive into comparison and the two categories we can fall into! Listen in as Taylor and I unpack this and discuss areas we've struggled with this and how we've worked to let go of them! Exodus 20:17 “You shall not covet your neighbour's house; you shall not covet your neighbour's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbour's.” Hebrews 13:5  Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

Today we dive into a well known, but incredibly tough enemy - body image. As we begin a new year, many of us may use this opportunity to look at our physical health, but let's not forget to look at our bodies the way God see's them! The bible is FULL of basic scriptures telling us that our bodies are one of our most precious gifts from God, but do we treat them that way? Do we celebrate, love, honour, and respect our bodies as gifts from the Lord? One of the hardest battles we fight daily is remembering that God sees our hearts - not our physical appearance! **If you struggle with disordered eating or any other kind of body dysmorphic disorder, we STRONGLY encourage you to seek professional, biblical counselling that will help you learn God's heart as you navigate through this. We love you, and we're here for you! Today's Verses: Psalm 139:14 1 Peter 3:3-4 Proverbs 31:30 1 Samuel 16:7 Ephesians 2:10 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 Romans 12:1 1 Corinthians 10:31 Philippians 3:21 Genesis 1:27 Galatians 1:10

Happy 2022! In our first episode of this New Year, we talk about the differences between setting (Biblical) intentions vs goals. We also get into the practice of manifesting, and why it's dangerous to us as Christian's. Join our new community group on Facebook, search for Towards Eden Community. Send us an email, drop a comment on our facebook post, or message us on IG to get our January scripture reading plan! towardsedenministry@gmail.com Today's Verses: Luke 22:42 Psalm 20:7 Isaiah 43:18-19 2 Corinthians 13:5 2 Chronicles 15:7 Ecclesiastes 5:5 Proverbs 20:25

Continuing on in our third week of advent, this week is all about Joy! What does it look like, and how can we get it? Listen to hear how joy goes hand in hand with peace (and how hope ties into it all as well!) Imagine for a moment, being one of the shepherd's, doing your thing when the angel's appear to announce the arrival of the saviour of the world. Does the bible actually tell us to answer our text's? Listen to find out! Today's Verses: Philippians 4:4-5 Luke 2:8-11 Romans 15:13 Psalms 9:2 John 16:22 1 Thessalonians 5:16 Galatians 5:22 Proverbs 10:28 Proverbs 15:23 Romans 14:17 Hebrews 12:2

Week two is all about the peace that Jesus brings. Again, this is such a BIG topic, and we will definitely add it to our list of series to come! Today we chat a brief over view of some of the ways Jesus brings peace to our lives. We also have some new merch that launched! Head to https://www.hellojoynco.com/towards-eden-podcast.html to shop! Today's Verses: Luke 2:14 John 14:27 Philippians 4:6-7 1 Peter 3:11 James 3:18 Proverbs 14:30 2 Peter 1:2 Luke 8:48

This week, we kick off Advent by talking about Hope. It was always God's desire to be in relationship with us, but after the fall, this relationship was broken. Because of Jesus's arrival on the scene, we have HOPE to once again spend eternity with Him in Heaven! Because of this eternal hope, we also have hope for the practical, day to day difficulties we may face. How do we bring this into our homes this Advent season? Join us in the conversation, and send us how you celebrate hope + Advent! Today's Verses: Romans 6:23 Job 14:7-9 Job 5:15-16 Psalm 9:18 1 Peter 5:10 Ephesians 1:18-19 Job 11:17-19 Revelation 21:4

We're super excited to launch off our first series: Advent! What even is it, what does it mean, why do we do it? We share how we did/didn't really celebrate growing up, and this episode is full of "fun facts"! Join us over the next four weeks as we dive into Advent: Hope, Love, Joy + Peace!

It’s easy to say we trust God completely, but when the time comes to hand over control completely - we often falter. This is another heavy one, and something we both struggle with daily.

Is it biblical to "Love Yourself"? That's the question we dive into today. Self love is spoken of as the answer to everything in secular culture today, and it's infiltrated its way into the Christian community as well. How can we possibly live with overwhelming feelings of shame, guilt, and regret - the consequences of our sinful nature? This one's a tough one, but stick with us and we'll get to how GOOD God truly is, and how we can live in peace as redeemed and sanctified people! Today's Verses: Ecclesiastes 7:20 Romans 3:10 Ephesians 4:22 Romans 12:2 Ephesians 2:1-10 2 Timothy 3:1-5 Matthew 22:37-40

Welcome to the first episode of Podcast 2.0! Learn what we've been up to for the past year, how God has drastically changed our hearts, lives and friendship. We get pretty deep and vulnerable about some of the dark places we've gone this year, but also HOW GOOD GOD IS to redeem and restore us in every way possible. Our vision for Towards Eden is to take a deep look at the things life throw's our way, and take them back to how God intended life to be when he created us in The Garden. We plan to learn, grow, and get pretty uncomfortable as we challenge ourselves to further surrender it all to the One who gave it all for us! Romans 12:2 - Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to discern and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.

We took a much needed break for a couple weeks, but we're so excited to be back and catching up! Find out what we've been up to, and what Netflix show's we're binging! We've missed our little community so much and are so happy to be back and bringing you content that makes you feel loved, seen, and understood! Please let us know what you'd like to hear from us coming up, and how we can pray for you!

This week, we thought it would be fun to play a little game of rapid fire questions! What's the Bible question you've never asked? Favourite Bible verse? Favourite Bible character? What's your current Bible study plan? A Bible that has a special meaning? Burning questions for Bible characters? How to memorize scripture? And what's the best Bible Study? Of course, we don't do any sort of conversation "rapidly", so get ready for some long winded answers! Dinosaurs, the story of Hannah, Heather's mom's library, and how neither of us are good at memorizing scripture. It's all here friends! Send us your answers to be entered into a draw to win Starbs on us! 

This week we get right to it. During trying times, it's especially hard to make God a priority in your life. But now more than ever, we need His grace and truth to get us through. We talk about distractions, and how we can try to overcome them. We cannot control so much right now, but we can control our responses to it. We encourage you to look at how you're responding when things feel hard. We are NEVER going to be perfect, but with God's help, we can work on reframing things positively and keeping our joy and peace. We always have access to MORE (joy, peace, patience, strength) through Him (Ephesians 3:20). We talk briefly about mommy wine culture, and how we've both fallen victim to using alcohol as a coping mechanism. Like so much in our lives, it's important to be self aware and ask ourselves hard questions (even when we don't want to accept the answers for ourselves). We love you guys, let us know how we can pray for you. 

This week, we hope you feel like you're sitting with us drinking coffee. We share a few of our thoughts about the pandemic, and how things are currently where we live. We chat homeschool struggles and what we miss most during our second lockdown. We have a big therapy session. Heather shares how she just went back to therapy, what she's working on, what she's learned, and where this all stemmed from. Taylor shares a darker time in her life, and how bad her mental health was during a hard year of her life. We hope you guys feel a little closer to us and know that if you're going through something hard....you are NOT alone! Head to www.raisingmyjoyfulcrew.com to sign up for Heather's social media mentorship program!

This week we have some sweet new friends on to chat with us about their incredible product, The Giving Manger. We know you'll fall in love with Allison and Lisa just like we did (seriously, instant friends!) They tell us the incredible story of where the idea for the Giving Manger started, as well as share their stories of what giving looks like within their own homes. Culturally, it can be SO easy to lose the true meaning of Christmas, but the Giving Manger is something that can be used all year round to instil kindness and a servant attitude in our children. Of course, Taylor sneaks the Enneagram into our conversation. We hope this conversation makes you feel like you're sitting around our table chatting with us! Go follow them on instagram @thegivingmanger , and go to www.thegivingmanger.com to purchase your own Giving Manger for your family! 

This week we catch up on mom life. Life has been crazy busy between work, Christmas, and all the things we do as mom's. We touch base on how our kids are sleeping (a common topic), and Taylor talks about how she hates her bed. We talk about our TikTok addictions, and how preteens/teenagers look SO much older than we did at those ages (and briefly discuss all our makeup mishaps). We discuss Taylor's previous hatred of TikTok, and how it is helping her cling to her youth. Help us figure out why Heather's FYP is all emo. Follow us on TikTok @tayblanchard_ & @raisingmyjoyfulcrew .  We chat about Instagram and give you our top tips. There's so many different ways of planning, and ways to provide value as an influencer (something that is SO important to both of us!) If you're wanting more info on how to grow as an influencer, check out Heather's Mentorship Program.  We share where we're at with our devotionals and personal development, and then there's a brief break where you'll hear Heather's cat break the house. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a 5 star written review, we'll buy you coffee!

This week....we didn't have much planned. Find out which Grey's Anatomy characters we think we are, and as we settle the great debate - McDreamy or McSteamy? We talk about Elf on the Shelf and when we think our kid's will lose the magic in Christmas. We share our high's for the week, but forgo the lows....because that's depressing and we choose not to focus on that. Find out Taylor's trick for getting her kids to sleep in their own beds (it has about a 60% success rate!).  Keeping our faith through COVID has looked different for all of us. From losing the familiar and traditional Church setting, we had to find new ways to adapt and find connection with God without the support of our Church and Spiritual family. We both love community worship to help us draw close to God, but this experience has tested and grown us in much needed ways. We talk about our key personality differences and how we both dealt with and felt about the sudden change. We talk about our struggles with missing the physical proximity aspect of our church relationships since we've reopened. As mom's, it's also a struggle to try to contain our young kid's in the new environment, and the stress we feel trying to "control" our kids (we have THE BEST Children's Pastor who helps us with this!). Ultimately, for our families, attending Church and raising Godly children is a priority despite the challenges. Colossians 3:15 - Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. We love connecting with all of you! If you have any ideas, or would be interested in some sort of community bible study, book study or other community learned venture, send us your ideas!

Continuing on with our Small Shop Christmas theme, this week we interview our good friend and boss babe, Kendra Lee Redman, owner and genius behind KenLeeCo! Kendra started her business in 2016 with some spare time and a Cricut machine, and she sits here four years later, with a booming business. What sets Kendra apart from a lot of business owners is her belief that there is room at the table for all, and is herself an avid supporter of the small shop community in it's entirety.  On this episode, Kendra shares her advice for new business owner's, some common mistakes she thinks people make, and some insight on how to avoid toxic competition. She also shares her advice for finding and vetting influencers, and why she feels they're an asset to a small business. We also take a brief pause for Taylor to gush about their mutual enneagram eightness.  Don't forget to rate and leave a written review for the chance to win Starbs on us!

This week, Heather and Taylor interview their first ever guest, their sweet friend Ashley Langohr! Ashley is the Director of The Mom Market Niagara, Mama of Riley, creator of Busy Bear Bags, and just an all around boss babe! Amongst the many bunny trails featured in this episode, they talk about the challenges small shops face in general, as well as during COVID. Find out which of Heather's many animals was featured on Baby Tula's social. Listen here to find out how you can make a difference and support small shops! Make sure to come out to the Pen Centre on November 21-22 to put a dent in your Christmas list, and make it a small shop Christmas! Remember, support local, don't lick stuff, and wear your mask!