By Deanna Kirk – Special to the Navarro County Gazette
If you missed my column on Stewardship, it ran Nov. 14, 2014 in a sister print publication.
Yes, I said 2014.
It ran after the passing of the bond election, and the most common feedback I received was why had I not run the column prior to the election?
So now I am going to say my piece prior to the election. This is in no way a condemnation, recrimination, or accusation of any person, group or individual. So let’s clear that up right now.
The definition of stewardship according to merriam-webster.com is “The conducting, supervising or managing of something; especially, the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care.”
I have been blessed my entire life with far more than I deserve: more love, more friends, more happy experiences, more family … but my monetary blessings have not been of the “overabundant” variety. They say money doesn’t buy happiness and I am happy, so that’s a blessing.
But – I have always striven to be a good steward of the blessings God did give me. I was a single mom with two kids for years, and let me tell you, that’s a struggle. Spending nearly 20 years in the newspaper business, my life was not lavish vacations, new cars and shopping trips – it was more careful planning in order to pay all the bills on time and keep my credit intact. Juggling increasing medical bills with giving to my church was always an exercise in sacrifice.
Right now in America, we are struggling with rising costs on every front. Even if you’re one of the people grumbling about how much it costs these days to build a huge new house at the lake, you’re seeing the cost increase. But imagine how families who live paycheck to paycheck are doing? The cost of gas rises daily, the groceries are becoming out of sight, and everything else has to go up due to the rising cost of getting the goods to you.
I don’t know about you, but my pay has not gone up. On the contrary – trying to survive as a small business in current America means our pay gets cut, not increased. I am right there with the other families who are struggling just to get by. I already struggle to pay my property taxes.
Careful, close scrutiny must be given to any proposals that involve hiking our property taxes. I urge the entities seeking bond packages to look very closely at what monies are to be spent, and how.
When many people are struggling to live within their means, when by no fault of our own the prices of everything we use on a daily basis is going up – will we soon see a mass exodus from city limit dwelling as it becomes too expensive to own property here?
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