Dear New Mom,
The days are now long, but the weeks are impossibly short.

Your little one is now well over a month old. You mourn the passing of the weeks.

You wonder if this is what it truly feel like to live. You wonder how to savor every moment. You wonder how to bottle up the joy, the sorrow, the childhood, the becoming of a mama.

I used to nurse the twins on the couch. A stool under my feet. A giant twin nursing pillow propped on my knees with two babies cuddled close. My laptop tucked up under the pillow (this was before the days of the smart phone that you’re reading this post on).

One day I stumbled on the following story during one of these nursing sessions. The story that taught me the most important lesson of my life.

I remember the words seared on my heart.

And “Give thanks if you are joy-filled” is really — “To be joy-filled, give thanks.”

The following is a excerpt with a link to the article.

Find joy today, new mama.

Cheering you on,
Melissa

Night after I read the story, I go looking for an old horn to screw right to the wall, because there are things worth the proclaiming.

And after I find one, I walk around the house with the horn in hand trying to figure if it looks best on this wall? Or the back of this door? The Farmer raises his eyebrows.

“A horn on a wall?” He’s grinning boyish. Joshua is playing scales. Levi’s reciting Latin chants. Shalom and Malakai are arguing loud over a game of chess.

“Because you’re thinking it’s not quite loud enough in here yet?”

“You!” I tease, poke him in the shoulder, him broad like a beam that carries half my world. “Does it look right here?”

“I think I’ve got a wall out in the barn it might look perfect on.” He winks, shields himself with his arm to fend off the next poke.

“But if you knew the story….” He nods, knowing, smiling, “Uh huh.” Stories can turn around whole hard hearts.

Click here to read the rest of this story retold by Ann Voskamp.