“You really think your mom will let me live in the garage?” I asked Steve.
“Sure! We’ll talk her into it. She loves you Cong! She’ll let you do anything. She even lets you drive our car and she literally won’t let me! Once we tell her why, she’ll definitely let you,” Steve explained.
“I would love to fix this place up. We could move all of this storage and junk over to the side and then put a bed in there and fix up that old stereo. This will be so great! Like my own apartment!”
“Let’s do it now! We’ll surprise her!” Steve encouraged.
My dad was talking about moving again. I was done. I hadn’t told him yet; but if they moved, I was staying. We had lived in Byers for just over a year. This was the longest I had ever gone to one school. A year was our longest stay in one house, my entire life. I’m not really sure why he wanted to move again, but he said we were. Now that I was in high school, I didn’t want to move again. In elementary, and even junior high, it wasn’t really that big of a deal. Looking back, I liked the changes and the prospect of something always being better than where we were.
A few years back my wife and I were desiring to improve our relationship. Things were going well and we had been studying how to be a better spouse and how to have a more fulfilling relationship. We began praying for God to give us a ministry we could do together.
Over the years as a youth pastor, Heidi helped out quite a bit. She led junior high small groups, prepared food, hung out with kids, hosted events and even had many sleepless nights with teenagers over long weekends, primarily to help me with my ministry. I mean, she loved the students and she loved Jesus, but she had her own ministry, as well.
Heidi LOVES children in elementary school. You can see her light up when she interacts with them. And she is the premiere expert at it. She is an incredible teacher, parent and children’s ministry leader! After all, I trust her with the most important kids in my life, ours! Heidi led children’s ministry in the years after and I supported her, a little bit, anyways. I helped her with tech, trained and organized her tech helpers, helped create flyers or advertisements and showed up to her events to do whatever was needed.
So, here we were praying about a ministry we could do together, that would be ours. Within a few weeks, God had pointed us to our current roles as co-principals at the Eagle & Dove Academy. I noticed a post on facebook advertising the position. As I read the job description, I noted with each passing bullet, “Heidi would be great at that, I would be good at that, Heidi would be great at that, I could do that,” and so forth throughout the entire description.
It was one position, but I could see how the two of us together would be perfectly fit for it. I messaged the contact and asked if he would consider two people to do the one job. We met, got to know each other, interviewed and was offered the position within a week.
God gave us confirmation that we knew He was providing. He was blessing us. We had received a ministry opportunity that we could do together. It was ours.
We have spent the last 2+ years leading as co-principals and we have learned a lot. We have grown in our relationship. We have seen how much we complement each other. We have learned to allow the other to lead in our strengths and/or passions. It is beautiful.
But, it is not without challenge. We have learned to trust each other. We have learned how to listen better. We have seen certain strengths in each other that were only visible at our day jobs.
When we were starting this position, I remember saying, “we’ve never really worked together before on something that is both of our passions.” Well, that wasn’t true because I quickly realized and remembered that we had spent the past 23 years raising our daughters together! And we quickly began relying on that experience, while expanding our influence.
I love working with my wife. First, I get to be with her. Second, I get to complement her. Third, I get to grow in my relationship with her. Fourth, God has used it to bless us. Lastly, I get to be with her. Having a relationship you enjoy with your spouse and working together is one of the most rewarding benefits of marriage.
I encourage you to pursue your oneness with your spouse in your own way. God will bless it. God will use it.
Shawn D. Congleton ~ life coach & author 