Working Together Nurtures Our Relationships

Charisse Tierney shares how an evening of yard work with her family led to a multitude of unexpected benefits. 

We picked up one rock and then another, slowly restoring the stone border around our front garden bed. My middle daughter and I worked together to lift an especially heavy piece of plywood and move it to the side of our house. The “fort” that my children had roughly constructed in front of our house may have looked like a palace to them, but I suspected the homeowner’s association would not agree.  

And so we worked together, lifting, moving, sweeping, and planting. A few neighbor kids started a pickup game of basketball in our driveway. Work intermingled with play. Happy debates about game points floated into our ears as my daughter and I dug into the giant bag of potting soil. It felt good to get our hands dirty as we dug the dirt out with plastic cups and dumped it into the pots on our front porch. 

The Beautiful Reward of Work  

My youngest daughter gathered her toys one by one and moved them to the play area behind our house. A few more cups of potting soil into the pots, and she claimed her reward for all of her hard work. We cut apart the flower packs, and she smiled as she gently placed each bloom in a pocket of dirt.  

Living beauty had replaced plywood castles. The profound simplicity of God’s creation, nurtured by the comfort and security of time together, satiated our needs and left peace in its wake.  

The rest of my children put the basketball away and helped with the last of the sweeping, trash collecting, and picking up. The newly restored order just outside our front door reflected the order we now all felt in our hearts.  

We opened the front door, and the delicious smell of a just-baked dinner wafted toward our noses. 

Working Together Resets Hearts and Habits  

Working together and restoring order together reset our hearts and our habits. Preparing for dinner together felt easier. There was less arguing over chores and more lingering over seconds. Dinner conversation grew easily from the physical labor and play we had all just choreographed. Cleaning up after dinner flowed more easily from our good moods and newly refreshed work ethic.  

Instead of trying to divide and conquer to work more efficiently and make the completion of many tasks our focus, we came together over one task. We worked together, we played together, we prayed together, we ate together.  

Instead of mom and dad as authority and children as servants, we worked together as equals, allowing mutual respect and understanding to replace power struggles with shared productivity. 

The atmosphere of our home was transformed.  

The task that was completed was beautiful.  

And a reminder of the day that work became the sustenance of our continual growing together in love. 

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Copyright 2025 Charisse Tierney
Images: Canva