Working Together

I love working with my husband. We do ministry together and we complement each other but I really like just being with him, being a helper for him. Today was a beautiful November Saturday so we were able to work outside getting a few things done. We installed a storm window and made a home made storm window for another window. Then we started to build a railing for our front step. Brad got the two by fours cut for it and was about to drive in the first nail, when someone pulled in the driveway and needed him to go with them. So I kept working on our project and was able to have it almost finished by the time he got back home. He put the cross piece up and we were finished. I like doing jobs like that with him.

We work well together and I am so proud of him. He has never been a handyman but since we bought our house he has been so willing to try new things and he has been able to do them. I'm his helper and I like that job. Tonight after our supper guests left he willingly jumped in and helped me wash up the dishes. We help each other.

We weren't always like this. I can remember trying to put up wallpaper border together, many years ago. There were sharp words and opinions being thrown about and even tears on my part. What made the difference? We learned to bend. If two horses are hitched together but one wants to go right and the other left, they won't go anywhere. They will waste all their energies working against each other, both trying to be right. Many married couples are like that too. They both have to be right so they are at odds with each other all the time.  But if the two horses will pull in the same direction, there is no stopping them and great things can be accomplished.

 But the horses, just like married couples, must make a choice to work together. I am thankful that I fought against my stubbornness and my desire to always be right so that I could have the relationship that I do now with my husband. Amos 3:3 asks the rhetorical question: "Can two people walk together without agreeing on the direction?". Many people would save themselves many heartaches if they could agree on what they would like their marriage to be like. 

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

 ⁹ Two are better than one,
   because they have a good return for their labor:
¹⁰ If either of them falls down,
   one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls
   and has no one to help them up.
¹¹ Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
   But how can one keep warm alone?
¹² Though one may be overpowered,
   two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.