Do you have your backpack? How about your lunch? Biology book? Water bottle?

What time should I pick you up today? Do you have play practice? Speech? Driver’s Ed?

It seems some mornings I’m a parrot, throwing out the same questions over and over again to my daughter. She’s a busy high school freshman who sometimes needs little reminders.

I need reminders, too.

Car keys? Cell phone? Reading glasses? (That last one is the unfortunate by-product of both age and grading papers.) Don’t leave home without them!

I’m busy too. I have a job. I have a home to maintain. I have kids who still need me (for a couple more years, anyway). It seems I’m constantly running lists through my head just to get through the day.

How about you, Mom? Do you need reminders? Are you a list maker like me? Or can you manage just fine without one? (If so, could you please let me know how that’s done?)

Do you ever feel like you could use a checklist for how to do this “Mom” thing? I know I do.

Breakfast? Check.

Laundry? Check.

Hugs all around? Check.

Our daughters aren’t something we can check off a list, however. They are as unique and varied as our days. They might need extra love and attention one day and to be left alone the next. They might respond to us with hugs and kisses today, but barely speak to us tomorrow.

The joys of having a daughter!

Thankfully, God has given us some guidelines about how to consistently parent our daughters as we maneuver through the busy days, the emotions, and the all-out craziness of being a mom today, and, for me, these guidelines come down to two words:

Love and Faithfulness.

Proverbs 3:3-4: “Let love and faithfulness never leave you. Bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man.”

Love and Faithfulness. If I could just remember those two little words, I am pretty confident that my days with my girls would be blessed.

If I could somehow get my girls to see the importance of those two words, the world around them would be blessed just a little more, too.

When I think about the One who gave those words to me, I think about His own love and faithfulness to me. And I realize I am already blessed because without the love and faithfulness of God, I would have nothing on which to stand in this crazy, busy, modern world we live in.

Showing patient, Christ-like love to my daughters, remaining faithful to our family and to Christ, gives them just a small (and rather imperfect) glimpse of who God is—that loving Heavenly father who will walk beside them forever.

What do I need to remember today (besides my reading glasses)?

Love and faithfulness

Written on the tablet of my heart.

Lord, let me be a woman who loves faithfully today so that my daughters may see you and be blessed.