Start Living It

So I'm on the home stretch for the financial statement analysis class. Paper is in its completed form with one more proofread tomorrow morning. Equations from chapter regarding disaggregation of the return on common equity ratio started becoming clear this afternoon. The end is in sight.

Then...

As I mentioned in another post, I've decided to take off the next 8 weeks from class and possibly longer. This has been something that I have been wrestling with for a couple of weeks. It all started in the Dominican Republic with the book of Colossians. This book is really loaded and several posts have included reflections. These verses have been kind of screaming out from the pages.

6-7 My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you've been given. You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him. You're deeply rooted in him. You're well constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you've been taught. School's out; quit studying the subject and start living it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving.

Right now things just seem way to out of sync without any natural rhythm. When, I read these verses, I had this sense of peace come over me that it is time to take a break from school and start living out the substantial gifts that I've already received.

A practical example...

This is no shocker to anyone that we are in some very serious economic times. Lay-offs are being common place. Unemployment is in double digits here and in other nearby communities. During class, we have been studying ratios and I started becoming interested in developing a new way of analyzing expenses. It is based on pounds of copper produced. We took our top expense categories and trend charted them through 2008 and obtained dollars expended per pound produced. With this data, we set goals for 2009 in each category and began looking for opportunities for improvement. So far, we have identified several and taken an already lean spending system and, using data, trimmed out even more fat to the tune of $10,000+ in January. Why is the relevant? Well, it all boils down to hope: hope for retaining jobs right here in Bremen, hope for the future.