Marriage: Be a team in all you do

The arrow is pointing to the 3-foot mark.

We had an eventful start to the week. Overnight Sunday into Monday morning, we had 2 inches of much-needed rain.

It came down so fast, our ditch out front completely flooded, saturating the dirt around our block wall.

Hubby barely touched the top of it with his foot and about 6 feet of the 3-foot-tall wall collapsed into the ditch. Mind you, the bottom rocks are HUGE and weigh maybe 300 pounds ore more.

We didn't know what the heck we were going to do as now our yard was bare dirt at the ditch. 

We knew this day was coming as the wall had been bulging outward (from a 2-inch thick tree root we later discovered!) but it sure was a surprise to see that pile of rubble!

We took the day off from work and along with my father-in-law, built that wall back up. Rock by rock, bottom to top. It took 6 hours, several shovels, a bucket for bailing water, a pry bar to lift the rocks, a board to roll them up to the higher levels and a wheel barrow to haul excess dirt away.

It occurred to me that this is what makes a successful marriage. Working as a team, even when the job is daunting and hard. If we can somehow remember to work as a team on everything - our jobs, child raising, caring for our home, planning for the future, managing money - we will be so much better off and so much closer as a couple.

If you're working toward the same goal, as partners, as team-mates, then you will automatically consider the other person's needs and respect the other person's contribution. The sense of accomplishment when we finished that wall was enormous. And we had done it together. Not one going it alone. Not two going in opposite directions. But side by side for the same purpose, helping each other all along the way.

That is a powerful thing. And I also love that Brady saw us working so hard together. In the mud and muck, in the heat and bugs, together.