The Process of Teamwork

Not too long ago I was listening to a book by Chip and Joanna Gaines, the people from the reality show Fixer Upper. I had never watched their show before and didn’t know much about them, but they are a husband and wife team that work together remodeling homes. In one part of the book they talk about how they make such a good team because they seem to energize each other the more they work together.

I have to say, that’s a special relationship.

After five years of marriage and 7 months as new parents, I can honestly say Taylor and I make a good team… but that doesn’t mean working together has always been easy.

We still joke that one of our biggest…um… shall we say “marriage building” experiences came when we were working cattle together after we’d been married for over a couple of years.

We’d just bought the growyard and gotten it up and running, but our hospital barn was still in the process of being built, so we had a portable pen with a manual chute set up so we could treat any cattle that needed it.

It was early one morning in June during wheat harvest. Taylor and I were hurrying to go feed cattle before heading to the field, but when we got there we noticed a new pen had a bunch of cattle that needed to be treated. So we fed, and then spent the next couple of hours sorting over a hundred head of cattle and treating any that were in need of some medicine. But the portable pen and manual chute definitely made the job more than a little difficult, and during that time a few cattle slipped by me or didn’t get caught in the chute quickly enough and we’d have to go back through and sort them out again. Long story short, trying to be good caretakers of the cattle entrusted to us, and trying to get a new business up and running, while also trying to hurry and get to the field to cut wheat made for a stressful situation. And let’s just say by the time we were done, Taylor and I didn’t walk away holding hands.

But we learned from the situation, and our marriage grew stronger from it. We’re a long ways from perfect, but we have become more patient with each other in our weaknesses and learned to play more to each other’s strengths.

When we are working together well, it’s really satisfying to see how much we can accomplish together. We had a nice, warm weekend earlier this February, and within a single afternoon we had cleaned up our garden so it could be ready when we start planting things this spring; We cleaned out our chicken coop and spread the litter on the garden; and we swept and reorganized the tack room in our calf shed. It was a really enjoyable day made even better when Taylor ran to town to pick up barbeque for supper so we could relax together instead of me spending the rest of the evening cooking supper and cleaning it up.

I just pray God will help us to become better partners and teammates every day, not only because it will make our marriage better, but because it will make us better parents to our little girl as well.

Each year for Lent I like either give up or do something extra. This year I want to try something new.

Over a year ago I served at a spiritual retreat called Women's Encounter. It was an amazing experience, but one of the things I loved most was the time we spent in prayer for the women who were attending and other aspects of the weekend. Prayer has been one of the more powerful ways I have experienced God, especially when I am praying not for my own wants and desires, but for the needs of others.

So this year for Lent I want to devote an extra 10 minutes a day praying for other people, but I will need help to do this. I am asking for people to share any prayer requests they might have and at some point during Lent, I will spend at least 10 minutes praying for it/you. I will not share these requests with anyone - I will be the only one who sees them. You can send me a private Facebook message with your requests if you are interested.

I pray this will be a great way for me to grow in my faith during this season, but that more importantly others might benefit from it as well.

The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. James 5:16

Since the last blog…

Taylee and I made a trip to visit my little sister and her family. We live in opposite corners of the state, so it’s a long drive, but the company is well worth it. :)

Our daughters are about 6 weeks apart in age, but I am always amazed at how different their personalities are already. Before becoming a mom I had assumed that, to a certain extent, a baby was a baby.

Afton is a lot more expressive than Taylee, and she’ll readily smile at pretty much anyone. Taylee is typically a very content baby, but she can be very somber. Unless you catch her in a really good mood, or if you’re someone she knows very well; you’re going to be hard pressed to get a smile out of her.

Taylee also went on her first ski trip this past weekend. Because of his knees, Grandpa Stewart didn’t ski, so he and Taylee got to hang out while we skied a couple hours in the morning and afternoon.

Skiing was a lot of fun – there was a lot of snow on the mountain so nearly all the runs were open.  I have to take it slow, and it’s definitely not very pretty, but I really enjoy the challenge of going down some of the double diamonds with Taylor. I only wiped out once – we were coming down a spot that wasn’t very even, but you had to go fast in order to make it up the hill on the other side. I almost made it, but dip close to the top of the hill got the better of me. I ended up sliding to the top of the hill on my backside, but as I came to a stop, I looked up at Taylor and said, “I made it!” :)

It's kind of like life in general - it ain't always pretty, but keep going until you make it!

I hope you all have a wonderful rest of the week!

Lyndee