My grandparents’ farm was not all fun and games. Gramps put us to work. One of our jobs as kids was to serve on the wood detail, as he called it. There was no electric heat (that I knew of, but of course, we only visited in the summertime). The wood stoves in the kitchen and living room were all they had. The one in the kitchen was for actual cooking.

Without wood, there was no cooking. Life at the farm began as soon as Grandpa got into the kitchen and started putting wood slabs into the stove through one of the four holes on the top, where the pots and pans usually sat and cooked. The heat would waft up through the vent/grate in the ceiling, which opened to the second floor in the large room where we slept in four beds lined up in two rows. I couldn’t figure out why Mom and Dad slept in the small room on the other side of where the stairs came up and not with us in the big room. The unmistakable aroma of the warm, smoky fumes was the giveaway, and we shot downstairs to begin the day. The kitchen was already warmed up to take the chill out of the northern morning air.

Stoves need wood, and the bin next to it would empty out in accordance with the amount of cooking Grandma was doing, usually daily. For being a woman of action, she was quintessentially domestic, commanding the kitchen with ease and joy, with her grandmotherly smile and the ever-present twinkle in her eye. I have a audio recording of her talking about an upcoming canoe trip, and she spent a fair amount of time describing the muffins she was making, “the kind Gramps likes.” She never had to worry about running out of wood for the cooking stove; Gramps included the wood detail in his daily routines.

I remember it like yesterday. Putting on our Redball Jets, the famous tennis shoe that makes you run faster (when I got older, I graduated to Chuck Taylor Converse Allstars), we ran out to help Grandpa. The first stop was to grab the old wheelbarrow beside the house. Our job as kids (Mike and me) was to ride in the wheelbarrow to help steady it as Gramps wheeled around the bush at the corner of the house, down the walkway, turning right on the gravel farmyard turnaround, and over to the woodshed, just before the farm road that cut across the open swampy field out to the highway.

As we arrived at the woodshed, the ever-present chopping block was out front, and the slabs of wood neatly stacked inside. These slabs were the cutoffs from the sawmill down the road where Gramps had a special deal with the owner. Jack (Gramps) knew everyone. As a matter of fact, one time we were returning from town, and he saw an acquaintance standing beside the road. Gramps just stopped the truck right there on the highway, didn’t pull over or anything. It didn’t matter to him that it was a simple two-lane road (not sure why it was called a highway); cars honking didn’t faze him. He lived there long before some of the young punks honking were born.

Well, back to the woodshed. After Gramps dumped us out of the wheelbarrow, our job was to bring the wood from inside of the shed to outside, where he split the wood into sizes that would fit in the stove holes. I couldn’t understand why he didn’t first spit in his hands, grab the ax, and take a huge, roundhouse, two-handed effort, whipping it around to his back and up from behind, swinging it overhead and slamming it down, splitting the carefully placed wood slab balanced on end atop of the chopping block—kind of like the way I’d seen guys testing their manhood at a carnival “Ring the Bell” attraction. I wanted to see the pieces flying away like projectiles. Instead, Gramps used a small ax with one hand, lifting only high enough just to split the wood and no more. He said something about not wasting energy, whatever that meant. Then we (Mike and I) would load the wood into the wheelbarrow.

Gramps taught us to put the slabs in the wheelbarrow in order, same direction, so that we could get more in. My job was to sit on top of the wood, keeping it stable and all in place as our hero wheeled the wood back to the front door. Mike steadied everything while walking beside. The final task was to carry the wood through the mudroom into the kitchen and stack it neatly and in order in the wood bin. By this time, we were pumped, and we would run back to the shed and then … wait for Gramps to lumber back to the shed for a second load. I couldn’t understand why he moved so slowly; it was so much faster when you ran. When I asked him about it, he just shrugged and said, “This is the way I do it.”

Well, Grandpa was no killjoy. After wood detail, as I remember it, we got paid, and that was a ride into town with Gramps and a visit to the old A&W for a root beer float, the appropriate pay for the big help we provided Gramps on the wood detail. I wondered how he got all that work done when we weren’t there to help him the rest of the year. But when we were there, a lot got done with our help!

God can get things done in this world without help just fine. But He wants us to “help” him. Why? Because it’s good to be working with God. I thoroughly enjoyed “working” with my grandfather because I was with him; that’s what made it special. He could have done the job of getting the wood quicker or better without our feeble, youthful efforts. But the job Grandpa had in mind was not just getting the wood split and brought in, but giving us a chance to be with him, and he with us, in what he was doing. It wasn’t about the wood or the kitchen stove; it was about a relationship, building memories, enjoying being together, and accomplishing a task together. God is the same way; He wants a relationship with us by our joining Him in His work.