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# What's Your Story - Ashleigh
- URL: https://dd.malinoix.com/whats-your-story-ashleigh/
- Published: 2012-05-25T00:00:15.000Z
- Updated: 2012-05-25T00:00:15.000Z
- Author: Maggie Winterton
- Tags: Devotionals, Guest Blogger, Love, Marriage, Motherhood, Relationships, Story, Work, #wordpress, #Import 2026-10-12 13:59

### [![](https://dd.malinoix.com/content/images/wordpress/2012/05/happybirthday2.jpg "happybirthday2")](https://devotionaldiva.com/2012/05/whats-your-story-ashleigh/happybirthday2/?ref=dd.malinoix.com)

### \[Guest post by Ashleigh Slater\] – My oldest daughter celebrated her eighth birthday two Saturdays ago.

As she blew out the candles on her “Sew Cute” Lalaloopsy cake, I marveled that I’m “Mom” to a second-grader. Not to mention a first-grader, preschooler, and toddler. Let’s just say, over a decade ago it wasn’t where I’d expected to find myself at 33.

Me, filling sippy cups up with pink milk throughout the day? *No.*

Me, carrying snack-sized bags of Goldfish and Chex Mix in my purse? *Nuh-uh.*

Me, making multiple trips to the grocery store for that bottle of ketchup that’s perpetually forgotten? *I don’t think so.*

I wasn’t attending grad school so I could spend my days buying tomato-based condiments in order to appease sauce-obsessed picky eaters. *No,* my goals were much bigger. They involved Hollywood – rubbing shoulders with celebrities, changing culture through the big screen.

### It wasn’t that I didn’t want the titles of “wife” and “mother.” I did—but later.

After I spent a few years pursuing a producing career in Tinseltown. After I had a few television series under my belt. After I had enough money in my bank account to afford years’ worth of diapers, a new two-wheeler after every growth spurt, and LeapFrog’s latest gadget without having to forego a new pair of jeans, a Starbucks caramel frappucino each day, and that San Francisco vacation in order to afford them.

*Turns out, “after” wasn’t part of God’s plan for my life.*

I met the man I now call “my husband” in my first year of grad school. Within a year we were married. In our second year of marriage, I became a stay-at-home mom as we welcomed our first baby into the world. Nineteen months later, our second daughter joined the ranks of the Slater family. Now, almost a decade into marriage, I’m the proud mama of four girls.

### Sometimes my mind wanders into what I term “dangerous territory.” The land of “what ifs.” 

*What if* I’d gone to L.A. after graduating? 

*What if* I’d gotten into television producing?

The answer is always the same. Whatever the reality to those *what ifs* may have been, they can’t possibly compare to the feeling I get when one of my daughters takes her first step. Or when my husband surprises me with a bag of Askonosie chocolate at the end of a long day.

This Sunday my pastor taught on what it takes to be an awesome mom. He pointed to a woman who embraces what he termed “the overshadowing.” He described this as a mother’s ability to surrender the limelight – to be OK with using her energy and resources to serve and highlight others, namely her children, rather than herself.

While I have much to learn before I deserve the title “awesome mom,” when I let go of my dreams of Hollywood, I slowly – and at times painfully – came to a place where what had been *my* dreams didn’t matter so much.

### I begin to take on new dreams – dreams the great Dreamer was imagining for me.

Motherhood has changed me in ways for which I wouldn’t have volunteered, but that have bettered me. And I’m finding that *this* story – and not the Hollywood one I was writing for myself – is just what I needed. What’s your story?

> *[![](https://dd.malinoix.com/content/images/wordpress/2012/05/ashleighslaterprofile-150x150.jpg "ashleighslaterprofile")](https://devotionaldiva.com/2012/05/whats-your-story-ashleigh/ashleighslaterprofile/?ref=dd.malinoix.com)Ashleigh Slater* *is the editor of Ungrind (www.ungrind.org)*. *As a wife and stay-at-home mom, she enjoys moonlighting as a freelance writer, proofreader, and editor. She currently lives in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri with her husband Ted and four daughters. You can follow her on Twitter* *@ashslater* *.*