The list is long, and always growing. At the top, in capital letters, are two words: MUST REMEMBER.

It's a deluge of demands: Write thank-you letters ... Buy new ballet leotard for daughter Emily (blue not pink) ... Return call from sister ... Ask cool friend what is gansta rap. No cool friends. Make cool friend. ... Baby-sitter Saturday ... call nanny temp agency ... See amazing new kung fu film -- Sitting Tiger? Sleepy Dragon? ...Trim son's nails ... Dentist appointment ... Return Snow White video to library ... Be nicer, more patient person with daughter, so she doesn't grow up to be a needy psychopath.

This is just one of the "must remember" lists compiled by Kate Reddy, the working mother at the heart of Allison Pearson's best-selling novel I Don't Know How She Does It (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002). Mothers around the world can certainly relate to her endless lists, compiled while walking through life in what she describes as a "lead suit of sleeplessness." And on this Mother's Day in particular, we can all be thankful for the many ways that time-and-sleep-starved mothers everywhere keep numerous balls in the air while being pulled in a thousand different directions.

" I have to try and REMEMBER," Kate confesses. "Someone has to." Her husband isn't much help, because if she asks him to hold more than three things in his head at once, you can see smoke start to come out of his ears -- the circuits all blow. Women are meant to be great at multitasking, says Kate. Most men are not.

When a friend named Jill dies of cancer, she leaves her husband a sheaf of paper containing twenty pages of single-spaced script. It bears the title YOUR FAMILY: HOW IT WORKS!

" Everything's in there," Jill's husband says to Kate, shaking his head in wonder. "She even tells me where to find the bloody Christmas decorations. You'd be amazed how much there is to remember, Kate."

But Kate isn't surprised at all. What mother would be?

In today's passage of Scripture, Mary certainly has a long list in her head as she makes the dusty trip home from Jerusalem. With the festival of the Passover now over, her mind races ahead to washing ... cleaning ... trash disposal ... gifts ... social events ... decorating ... sewing ... mending ... cooking ... negotiating relationships ... caring for children ...

Wait a minute: Caring for children?

Where's JESUS?

The family is now a day away from Jerusalem, and Mary panics when she cannot find Jesus among the friends and relatives. She and Joseph had assumed he was in the group, but when he doesn't turn up they race back to the city, their hearts pounding like jackhammers.

For Mary the minivan mom, feelings of shame sweep over her as she thinks about forgetting Jesus. How could she have failed to check on him before leaving the city? And now, how could she not know where her 12-year-old son is? She feels that mothers are supposed to KNOW that kind of thing, and so Mary feels the gavel of judgment come down on her head.

It takes Mary and Joseph three days to find their son, and when they do he is in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Mary is overwhelmed by a mixture of astonishment, relief, and anger, and she says to him, "Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety."

To which Jesus says, "Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" (Luke 2:46-49).

At first glance, the scolding words of Mary make more sense that the response made by Jesus. We can understand why she snaps at a boy who wanders off from the family, causing them intense anguish. We can relate to her frustration with a kid who sits around the temple for three days, acting as though nothing is wrong, while she and Joseph are overwhelmed by feelings of helplessness, anxiety, and fear. We won't blame her at all if she says to Jesus, "Why can't you be more like your younger brother James, and stay close beside us?" You know that little James would love that, wouldn't he? This is Your Family -- It's How It Works! James is the brother of Jesus whose ossuary -- burial box -- made the national news last year. At the time, Jay Leno joked about Mary making a typical introduction of Jesus, "This is our oldest child who is, as you know, our Lord and Savior." Then, turning to her younger son, she says, "And this is James, who's still in carpentry school."

Well, Mary isn't thinking "Lord and Savior" at this particular point. Not at all! In today's passage, it appears that Jesus is not in the temple -- he's in the doghouse! And little brother James has got to be eating it up!

But that's not the end of the story. The real value of today's passage is found in the words of Jesus, not Mary. "Why were you searching for me?" asks Jesus. "Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" This is a reminder that the true family of Jesus is bigger than the nuclear grouping made up of Mary, Joseph, Jesus, James, and the other siblings. The most important family for all of us to consider is the far-reaching family of God.

This is Your Family. Your True Family. But How Does It Work?

Jesus reminds us that his "Father's house" is our one true home. It's a place of listening and learning, teaching and questioning, growing and developing and deepening our relationship with God and with one another. This house is more than a temple, more than a congregation, more than a denomination -- it's any place, really, any place in the world where we make a profound and personal connection with our Creator, and where we grow in faith and love.

This is not to say that a mother's house is unimportant. Far from it. There are lessons in goodness and mercy and faithfulness that are best learned in close-knit families, but these learnings should not be trapped forever within the home. Everything Mary did for her child Jesus helped to prepare him for his work in the world, and it wouldn't have been right for her to prevent him from going out to serve his heavenly Father.

True, she wasn't ready for him to leave the family quite so early. Age 12 is kind of young. But she had to let him go.

A mother's house can be solid preparation for life in the Father's house. Jesus knew this, which is why he felt so comfortable among the teachers of the temple, and why he appeared to be so surprised when his parents came looking for him. "Why were you searching for me?" he asked them. Didn't you know that this is what you've been preparing me to do?

We mothers and fathers today should keep this in mind as we raise our children to adulthood. The lessons we teach should not be designed to insulate our children from the world ... or to keep them intensely focused on the affairs of the family ... or to make it hard for them to break away from mom and dad. Instead, the work of the nuclear family should prepare children for service to the world-wide family of God.

But there's another lesson from the story of Jesus in his Father's house:

Listen! ... Listen to the children! Listen to their hopes and dreams, insights and opinions. Jesus says to his parents, "I must be in my Father's house," and then his mother treasures all these things in her heart (v. 51). Mary begins to see the plan that God has for Jesus, and her openness to this plan enables Jesus to increase in wisdom, and to become the savior God wants him to be.

We parents cannot figure out the meaning of daily life on our own. It is important to resist the temptation to try to gain control over every moment of every day. If we become too obsessed with managing ourselves and our children, we will squeeze the vitality out of this wondrous life we have been given. So let go. Have faith. Loosen up. Trust God. And listen to the children.

" It goes so quickly, doesn't it?" reflects Kate Reddy. "One day they're saying all those funny little things you promise yourself you'll write down and never do, and then they're talking like some streetwise kid or, even worse, they're talking just like you." In an email to a friend she adds, " Think I have forgotten how to waste time and I need the kids to remind me how to do it."

So remember: Focus on the Father's house, not just your own. Let go. Have faith. Loosen up. Trust God. Waste time. Listen to the children.

This is God's Family, and How It Works. Amen.

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