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By Marie Harrison 

For the Clemmons Courier

“Brownies?” my son said as he walked into the kitchen, smelling the chocolatey goodness coming from the oven. He was right, I was baking brownies, but not for our family. Instead, these treats were meant for the people giving up their time on a Monday night to help prepare my son for congressional interviews. As my son moves forward in his goal of attending a United States military academy, he has now begun the process of trying to secure a congressional nomination.

For the Naval Academy, or the Air Force Academy, etc., it is not enough to just be selected for admission into their college, you must also secure a nomination from your U.S. representative or senator. Talk about pressure. And my son already knows his application was good enough to move forward to the interview process for at least two of the congressional offices where he applied for a nomination, but now he needs to be ready. Ready to sit in front of a panel who will fire off questions at him, questions that could quite literally be anything. Your favorite candy bar? Your greatest strength? What would you do if given orders to do something illegal? The list is endless. And in just 15 minutes, he has to field every question thrown at him, answer with honesty and integrity, and show the members of the panel why he should be the one to receive the congressional nomination amidst a pool of very qualified candidates.

So, while I baked brownies, my husband assembled a diverse team. People with military experience, people with HR experience, people with STEM backgrounds, and those six individuals all agreed to meet and conduct a mock interview for my son. My husband compiled some questions for the panel to ask, but also gave them the full freedom to ask anything they wanted. My son won’t know any of the questions he could potentially be asked by the real panel, and he has to be ready to think on his feet.

As my boys headed out the door to the mock interview, brownies in hand, I couldn’t help but reflect on the very different roles my husband and I both play in this whole college admissions process. I’m there to edit essays for grammar while my husband runs the spreadsheets making sure all the deadlines for admissions and nominations are met. I’m baking brownies and my husband is compiling a mock panel. I’m the ever-present voice of encouragement and support while my husband is the pragmatic voice of reason, laying out my son’s options for achieving his dream of flying at each of the academies. It truly is a team effort to support our son and help him achieve his dreams.

And while my husband and I serve very different roles in this whole process, one thing is certain — we are both needed. When my son is discouraged and needs encouraging words, I’m there. When my son is unsure about which colleges he should apply to for an NROTC scholarship, my husband is there to walk him through what that looks like at each individual school. When my son needs to prepare for a congressional interview, my husband compiles a panel, creates mock questions, and I bake the brownies to ensure everyone leaves full and happy. Teamwork. But where would my son be if he didn’t have us both, if he didn’t have the full team there to support him? Could my husband offer encouraging words? Sure. Could I compile a mock interview panel? Probably. But neither of us would be working in our wheelhouse, it wouldn’t be our first instinct or, what comes naturally, it wouldn’t be ideal. And as I thought about this team approach to helping our son, I began to think this is exactly what God intended. Each person using their gifts, whatever they may be, to help someone else.

We are all different. We all have different strengths and weaknesses. We all approach life and the problems it hands us differently. And that’s OK. It’s actually what God intended. In Romans 12, Paul is careful to tell the people that we are all given different gifts, and we are supposed to use them. Paul says, “If (your gift) is to encourage, then give encouragement. If it is to lead, do it diligently. If it is to give, then give generously.” (Rom 12:8) God wants us to approach life with a teamwork approach. Knowing we are all different, knowing we all have different gifts, God wants us to use these differences and gifts to help others — people in our family and people we meet along the way. We are supposed to work as a team to lift others up. And no gift is greater than any other, they are all “gifts” and useful. Our challenge in life is not to be greater than anyone else, our challenge is to figure out what our unique gift is and how to use this gift to help others. Maybe that’s offering encouragement, maybe that’s fixing a neighbor’s leaky faucet, maybe that’s baking brownies or creating a mock panel. When it comes to life, teamwork makes all the difference, and the more diverse your team, the better off you are.