Friday, March 14, 2014

Don't sweat the small stuff!

While listening to a well-known “Dr.” interviewing a man about his abusive behavior, I heard him.  He said something that I had not heard quite that way before.  

You can’t fix a problem if you don’t acknowledge the problem.  
You can’t acknowledge a problem if you have no idea you have it.

So what to do if you “know” you have a problem, but don’t have a clue what it is?  The suggestion was made that one would benefit from comparing past relationships (in his case) and figure out the problem that way, narrow it down to 2 possibilities – either he chose the same wacko each time or he IS a big problem.  That’s great.  He was able to narrow it down with the help of the “Dr.”

What if you don’t have that objective outside helper; that one person you don’t have to pay $200.00 per hour to give you a hint?  Sadly most folks don’t have that one person in their life that they trust to help them turn their life around.

How about family?  Do you really trust anyone in your family to be objective?  Maybe they would be, but do you “trust” their opinions and observations?  The same goes for friends.  Do you trust at least ONE of them to have enough common sense, enough Christian love and enough honest caring for you to be deeply honest about what they know to be true, not what they have heard from other people?

Now, let’s make a bold assumption that you have that ONE person who will tell you what you “need” to hear, not what you “want” to hear.   Will you listen?  Have you enough trust, enough common sense, enough Christian love and enough caring for yourself to be deeply honest about what they tell you and take it to heart and really “hear” them.

You’ve chosen the person.  They have told you the truth.  All you have to do is act on what you have learned about yourself.  Simple, huh?  For about 15 minutes it’s real simple.  Then along comes a pebble, then a rock, then the sure enough big stumbling block.  That is when a mentor is invaluable.
I was told a few years ago that I had a problem. I asked the one who told me, "What do I do to fix it?"

The response was, "You're a smart girl, you'll figure it out!"

Well, I wasn't that smart. I didn't figure it out and that's okay because the need to figure it out has long since disappeared.

It only just occurred to me that they didn't know how to fix my problem either because they didn't know what it was and they just may have been a big part of it. Such is life.

Onward and always upward. ;-)
It just shows me that:
You can't sweat the small stuff and most of it is VERY small stuff.
You can't understand everything so don't try.
And GOD will make all things work together for good for those that love HIM, and that's a fact!

Shalom!  Pray for the PEACE of Jerusalem!

Romans 12:1
Psalm 51:17
2 Corinthians 4:16

I don't want the 10 Commandments back in the school - Freedom is from GOD not the government.

I don't want the 10 Commandments back in the school. I want JESUS CHRIST THE MESSIAH in the home, the schools and in all phases of Government. That's all I'm praying for.

We wouldn't need to return anything to the schools if it hadn't left the homes and the congregations first. If folks were going to the Meeting House (like they used to) and taking Church with them, the Church would still be allowed in schools.

Don't understand? Well, the Church is not the building. The building is where the Church goes to meet on Sundays and Wednesdays. The Body of CHRIST is THE CHURCH. The building is simply a convenience, a large place to gather and worship GOD.
 
Free Government is the direct result of a deeply held Religious faith. If you believe in GOD you can be free because you know you are accountable to GOD. Personal accountability is supremely necessary in a free society.

While mankind is sinful, it is only the presence of GOD that restrains that same nature. That is the cornerstone of our Government. GOD was included as a necessity and not simply as a convenient, “feel good” Freedom. Our methodical removal of GOD from our Government will only serve in the removal of our Freedom.

Civil Liberties cannot be allowed to be claimed by those whose ultimate desire is to overthrow those same Civil Liberties. Those who claim to institute a different law under the guise of Religious Freedom or those who desire to overthrow Capitalism under the guise of Freedom of Speech.

Communism would use the freedoms that we have to motivate us to failure rather than to success due to the fact that they hold to the ideology that one’s freedoms are given by the Government and that same Government has the power to remove those very freedoms.

Terrorists would use our Freedom of Religion in order to institute Islamic laws, theoretically only within their neighborhoods, in order to gain a foothold and ultimately spread it throughout the nation, thereby replacing Christian Law with Islamic Law. We see that in the insistence of wearing the clothing, having the prayer times and forcing the local Governments to allow the prayer calls that disrespect local noise ordinances.
 
As we continually “allow” the laws to be changed under the misguided assumption that we must “tolerate” everything in order to be viewed as “equal under the law” we are, in effect, undermining the very privileged sanctuary that guarantees the Freedom to be “different.” When you restrict one’s ability to even think, then write, a differing opinion that has been held since the beginning of the country (all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights) you contribute to the undermining of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
 

From Poverty to Poverty - Raising the Minimum Wage solves nothing!

It really is a no-brainer that people can't survive (raise a family, get ahead, save money, etc) on $7.25 per hour. Will they be able to "survive" on $10.10 per hour?

What happened to the personal economy when the minimum wage was raised to $7.25 on July 24, 2009? Well, in the short term, people enjoyed that boost in their paychecks. But they also noticed that their new wealth was no more able to raise their standard of living than being given a puppy. The cost of living increased due to the higher cost of labor.

In July, 1967 I worked for $1.00 per hour in a hospital laundry. It was my first job and thought it a fair wage for unskilled labor folding sheets and loading machines. At that time, bread was about $0.25 per loaf, milk was about $.030 per gallon and a pound of ground round was about $0.50. So for that dollar, after taxes you could get 2 of the 3 items. And you could buy 4 gallons of gas for about $1.00. You could buy milk, bread and almost 2 gals of gas.

Today, March 8, 2014 you can work for $7.25 per hour. Milk is about $3.00 per gallon, a loaf of bread is about $2.00 per loaf and a pound of ground round is about $7.00 a pound (okay, so you'll get that prepackaged no see-um ground meat(?) for $3.00 per pound) [Who wants meat that actually tastes good anyway?]. After taxes you will probably get about $6.00 (when you make more, you will get less than that, probably closer to $4.50). So for $6.00 you can get a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread. Or, 1 pound of cheap meat and a gallon of milk. And you can go to the gas station and lust after that gallon of gas at $3.20 per gallon.


What will $10.10 get you?  Prices have already gone up as of March 14, 2014.  Bread is still about $2.00 a loaf, but a gallon of milk is edging closer to $4.00 per gallon and a pound of cheap meat is about $5.00.  You'll still get about the same thing you were getting before.  And you still will lust after that gallon of gas which will probably be closer to $4.00 per gallon than $3.00.

Raising the minimum wage really won't get us anything. It won't raise anyone's standard of living. And the poverty level? It's just a number. It doesn't mean very much. JESUS said, "The poor you will have with you always..."

The Government, that mini-god in Washington, DC, will only cook the books and wiggle the numbers until it suits whomever is in office no matter what party gets in.

What is poverty? A lack of "stuff"? We no longer have to worry about a lack of "stuff." We need to be concerned more with our moral poverty. And this country is on the brink of moral bankruptcy.  From irrational children suing parents for their "right" to parental money, to the government removing children from parents because they (the bureaucrats) disagree with the doctors the parents took their child to, we, as a nation, have LOST IT!

And yes, if you read this far, you could probably find fault with some of my math or my beliefs, but you get the point.

 
Instead of raising the poverty level otherwise known as the "Minimum Wage," why not raise the level of employ-ability by allowing lower wages for a period of time and provide quality training for a higher paying job or vocation?  Simply giving or requiring employers to give higher wages doesn't solve anything.

Remember the old adage, "Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.  Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime."  Unless the Government steps in and taxes or regulates him out of business.