Counting the Cost

      It’s not easy to operate a small business in America today.  To start a business, one must first have an interest in a specific type of work.  Then you must develop and perfect not only your skill in the work you wish to pursue, you must also learn a whole host of other things, including accounting, customer relations, advertising, marketing, purchasing and more.  These Mom and Pop companies often operate on a shoestring budget, and these are the hardest workers you’ll ever come across.  There are no “sick days,” for them.  If they are sick, who will run the store?  If they stop working, the income stops as well.  And vacation?  No.  Not for them.  While they may provide paid vacation time for their valued employees, the owners themselves rarely see a day off.  Healthcare benefits?  Whatever healthcare insurance they have, they pay for -- themselves.  Nothing is free when you are a business owner.  Everything they do comes out of their own pockets.  
   Such industry is the stuff America was built upon.  Hard work.  The hardest you can imagine.  Diligence.  Perseverence, often in the face of unfathomable challenges.  It also takes a great deal of prayer, and faith in God, who truly is our ultimate Provider.  The one benefit of owning one’s own business is that you are free to operate it reflecting your own ...