What have you got to offer?

This morning in church the pastor was teaching from John 12.

3Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. 4Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, which should betray him, 5Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? 6This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein. 7Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. 8For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always.

He talked of how great a sacrifice of worship this was from her. That it seemed insurmountable considering how costly the oil was. He likened it's worth to about $40,ooo. Whether or not that is completely accurate is irrelevant. The others present must have been confused - knowing how much money that oil could have been traded for. Then the pastor asked one of those rhetorical questions that pastors often ask from the pulpit with the intention of making you think. "What do you have to offer as a sacrifice worship to the Lord? What do you have of great value that you could simply lay at His feet and surrender to Him?"

All I could think of to answer within myself was : My children. Truly, as a mother, all I have to offer to my Lord in this life is my kids. I do not manage the finances of my home - nor do I have the luxury at present of a lot of time to spend in "ministry". What I do have however is a high-calling to raise children who fear Him, love Him, and serve Him. I heard it said once,"The only thing you can take with you to heaven is your kids". How utterly true that is. The investment of training up children in the way they should go is an investment with eternal returns.

Be blessed and encouraged today mothers.

Obama's Inverted American Dream

Well, I normally don't get into anything political on my blog. It just isn't what I typically want to focus my writing on. However, I am feeling quite impressed to do so given the current Presidential election and the respective candidates' campaigns. My husband and I are quite interested in politics and have enjoyed discussing all things political throughout our marriage. We almost always see "eye-to-eye" regarding the political world and I have his blessing in writing about political issues here on my blog if that is my wish.

To preface what I really want to focus this post on, I want to say that we are not directly affiliated with ANY political party. While we almost always lean toward Republican with our votes, we are very leery of designating ourselves as "Republicans" because we feel that partisanship has changed so much over time. We also will ABSOLUTELY NOT vote for someone on the basis of partisanship alone. We always focus our vote on values, priorities, and what we feel to be the option with the most integrity - not just because a person is a member of a particular party.

All that being said I want to highlight some of the aspects of Senator Obama's proposed "CHANGE" that have us concerned as American small business owners aside from the moral or ethical issues. First I will cite what we read that raised our concerns.

To quote his website (http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/#small-business):

Raise the Minimum Wage: Barack Obama will raise the minimum wage, index it to inflation and increase the Earned Income Tax Credit to make sure that full-time workers earn a living wage that allows them to raise their families and pay for basic needs.

Expand Paid Sick Days: Barack Obama will require that employers provide seven paid sick days per year.

Expand the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA): Barack Obama will expand the FMLA to cover businesses with 25 or more employees. Barack Obama will expand the FMLA to cover more purposes as well, including allowing workers to take leave for elder care needs; allowing parents up to 24 hours of leave each year to participate in their children's academic activities at school; allowing leave to be taken for purposes of caring for individuals who reside in their home for 6 months or more; and expanding FMLA to cover leave for employees to address domestic violence and sexual assault.

Support Small Business

Provide Tax Relief for Small Businesses and Start Up Companies: Barack Obama will eliminate all capital gains taxes on start-up and small businesses to encourage innovation and job creation. Obama will also support small business owners by providing a $500 “Making Work Pay” tax credit to almost every worker in America. Self-employed small business owners pay both the employee and the employer side of the payroll tax, and this measure will reduce the burdens of this double taxation.

Create a National Network of Public-Private Business Incubators: Barack Obama will support entrepreneurship and spur job growth by creating a national network of public-private business incubators. Business incubators facilitate the critical work of entrepreneurs in creating start-up companies. Obama will invest $250 million per year to increase the number and size of incubators in disadvantaged communities throughout the country.

***WHAT ALL THIS SAYS TO ME is he wants to make it EVEN HARDER to be a small business owner in America. You see, people often assume that owning a business means you can "have your cake and eat it too". We hear the gripes of our employees all the time on how things are so "unfair". They see our nice (OLD) home in the country and say "Gee, wish I could have that". They see our two work vehicles and our (USED) mini-van and say "Must be nice to afford 3 cars". They know that we have 4 children and assume that we must have great health insurance never guessing that in truth we have had a very hard time finding ANY insurance that will cover my pregnancies or that is anywhere near affordable so we just pay out-of-pocket for the births and ask for as little intervention as possible to keep the payments down. What the gripers don't account for is the fact that my husband worked himself weary getting to where we are. He worked 2-3 jobs from high school on; doing the hard stuff that others didn't want to do, keeping himself out of trouble and making smart financial choices instead of wasting his money. He went without the "nicer" things that others demand and kept himself focused. We attribute all of his success to the favor of God on his life. The "CHANGE" proposed by Sen. Obama is mandating that we make things more "fair" for our employees. Pay them more for the same half-hearted mediocre work. Let them have even more excuses for calling in. Forget production. Forget that they already abuse the laws in place to protect them. Forget that it is already next to impossible to fire a bad employee - or that they are so empowered to cry "unfair" and create a lawsuit. We own a house-framing business. In the construction world things often work very differently from the typical corporation. We can't have half of our crew leave early on a crane day to attend a PTA meeting. That would cost us a LOT of extra money. We can't afford to pay our employees while they are sick or on vacation. We already have issues with them calling in (or not even bothering to call in at all) when they aren't really sick (just hung over) or demanding their checks earlier and earlier in the week. We have other friends who own small businesses and it is the same for them. What these changes will force us to do is fire the employees off of the payroll and sub-contract them out for each individual job. Now what would THAT do to the economy Sen. Obama? We don't want to have to do that - but short of absolving the business altogether we don't see any other option if things go that direction. We already make less than some of our better employees; this is all creating what I call An INVERTED AMERICAN DREAM. It used to be that in this Land of Opportunity anyone with the determination to succeed could rise above any circumstances and fulfill their definition of success. Now it's as if everyone wants a slice of the pie handed to them on a silver platter. It doesn't matter what it is as long as no one else gets a bigger one. We do not begrudge anyone having their hard work pay-off for them but it does bother us if the ones who have worked hard with integrity are forced to hand it over without question. In this INVERTED AMERICAN DREAM society proposed by Sen. Obama the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT is dictating the running of a business, of all businesses. We feel that if some business owner is a scrooge then no one should choose to work for him and thereby demonstrate their free will. If the guy can't make his money than he'd have to change his policies to make his business a more friendly work environment. In contrast, a good business owner should be able to make his benefits appealing to the employees and generate for himself more laborers and therefore more business. When it's forced at the business owner from Washington the employees demand the benefits without even earning them and it constrains the entire work environment. The employees "reign" over the employer. The employers hands are almost completely tied in promoting the better employees over the less motivated. It just seems so back wards. I understand that there are pretty crummy bosses out there. I feel that these proposed changes though will only punish the hard-working good bosses and further drive out the small businesses. The aforementioned "small business" helps that Sen. Obama has on his website is just further proof that he feels the Federal Government should have even more jurisdiction in the life of the business owner. NEWSFLASH: Most people seek to become business owners to attain a greater level of freedom, not the other way around.

Do not misunderstand. My husband and I know Whom we rely on. We are not at all worried. We have our hope secured in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Our trust for all things is in him. However, we live in a country where, for the time being, we have the privilege of using our vote to convey our opinions and our priorities. I simply felt it necessary to "vent" about mine here. Thanks.