The Lessons We Don’t Realize We’re Teaching

I quickly jotted down my list of items we needed at the grocery store while my four-year-old daughter colored her own “list.” She sweetly asked if she could write some of her letters on mine, and I happily agreed. She scribbled a few lines on my paper, and we headed out the door.

After gathering everything on my list into the cart, I said, “I think that’s everything. Let’s go check out.”

To my surprise, she replied, “But you forgot the pickles.”

I checked my list again. “Oh, I didn’t realize we needed pickles. They weren’t on my list.”

She smiled and said, “Well, they were on my list...and I wrote them on your list too.”

I chuckled as we grabbed a large jar of pickles and headed for the checkout line. I couldn’t help but smile. She wasn’t just a passenger along for the ride of my errands—she was an engaged participant, with her own ideas and agenda. And I was so thankful for her—she made an otherwise ordinary trip to the store something to smile about.

Sometimes the mundane moments of motherhood are the sweetest. These are the moments I know I’ll miss when she’s a little too old to ride in the cart while we hunt for groceries together.

So often, we rush past these ordinary moments or assume they don’t matter as much as the big ones. But it’s these small, everyday routines that are often the most shaping. My daughter copied my grocery list… and I couldn’t help but wonder what else she might copy.

My hope is that I will show her what it looks like to faithfully follow God—not just in the big, visible moments, but in the quiet, everyday ones too. I hope she sees me reading my Bible, spending time in earnest prayer, worshiping genuinely, and serving my family with a kind and willing heart.

What will she remember? How will she make what I taught her, her own?

The truth is, she already is.

In the same way she added “pickles” to her list, she’s quietly adding pieces of my life to hers—watching, absorbing, imitating. Not just in the big, intentional moments, but in the ordinary ones I’m tempted to overlook.

And maybe that’s where faith is formed most deeply—not in the grand gestures, but in the daily rhythms. In the way I speak, the way I respond, the way I turn to God when no one is watching.

Because little eyes are always watching. Little hearts are always learning.

So I’ll keep writing my “list”—choosing faithfulness in the small things, trusting that God is using even the most mundane moments to shape something eternal in her. And maybe one day, she’ll take those quiet lessons and make them her own.

"These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up."--Duet. 6:6-7