Yassssssss..😙😙

How to start a business 101

If you want to officially, legally start your own business but don’t know where to start, here are the basic steps:

Define your business Niche, industry, higher goal/your “why”. You need to get clear on what you want to achieve with your business and what it should look like.

Market research Research if there is a need for your products/services, study your competitors, create a ‘persona’ or ‘avatar’ of your ideal client in order to understand their journey. The user journey formula is simple: client’s xyz issue -> your solution for their issue -> reaching their end goal = happy client.

Business strategy After you’ve done market research, and before registration, it’s the perfect time to create a business plan. This is the concrete step-by step plan for your business. Small goals, big goals, a calendar for the whole year.

Legally register your business The process, costs & documents required for this will depend on each country so check your local authorities for this. Now is also the time to decide what legal body you want to choose for your business: Sole Proprietorship, LLC (limited liability corporation), etc. Do your research on the differences between each, and find out what is best for your business to begin with. You have to decide for yourself.

Research your tax obligations For better or worse, it’s your responsibility to be well informed. Remember that any registered business has to pay taxes on their earnings, from 10% up to 50% depending on country.

Accounting Use an accounting service, hire an accountant, or do it yourself. Just be smart about it, this is important. The only way you should go the DIY route is if you literally have less than 10 transactions per month and have a simple business.

Business bank account You should create an account for your business. And yes, your personal bank account needs to be separated from your business one, no questions asked. Even though the laws are different in each country and some don’t require it, in the long run it will save you loads of trouble to keep clean, organized bookkeeping. Plus, depending on your local banks, you may even find advantageous offers that include healthcare, billing services and other perks.

This is one of my favorite hymns!

History of Hymns: "'Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus"

by C. Michael Hawn

“‘Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus” by Louisa M. R. Stead | The United Methodist Hymnal, No. 462

“Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, and to take him at his word; just to rest upon his promise, and to know, "Thus saith the Lord.” Jesus, Jesus, how I trust him! How I’ve proved him o'er and o'er! Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus! O for grace to trust him more!“

From her childhood, the call to missionary service was the guiding motivation for Louisa M. R. Stead (c. 1850-1917). Born in Dover, England, and converted at the age of nine, Stead came to the United States in 1871, living in Cincinnati. She attended a camp meeting in Urbana, Ohio, where she dedicated her life to missionary service. Ill health prevented her from serving initially. She married in 1875, and the couple had a daughter, Lily. Hymnologist Kenneth Osbeck describes a major turning point in the family’s life:

“When the child was four years of age, the family decided one day to enjoy the sunny beach at Long Island Sound, New York. While eating their picnic lunch, they suddenly heard cries of help and spotted a drowning boy in the sea. Mr. Stead charged into the water. As often happens, however, the struggling boy pulled his rescuer under water with him, and both drowned before the terrified eyes of wife and daughter. Out of her ‘why?’ struggle with God during the ensuing days glowed these meaningful words from the soul of Louisa Stead.”

The hymn, “’Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus” was inspired by this personal tragedy.

Soon after, Lousia and Lily left for the Cape Colony, South Africa, where Louisa worked as a missionary for fifteen years. She married Robert Wodehouse, a native of South Africa. Because of her health, the family found it necessary to return to the United States in 1895. Wodehouse pastored a Methodist congregation during these years until, in 1900, they returned to the mission field, this time to the Methodist mission station at Umtali, Southern Rhodesia (present day Zimbabwe).

Kenneth Osbeck records a message sent back to the United States shortly after her arrival in Southern Rhodesia: “In connection with the whole mission there are glorious possibilities, but one cannot, in the face of the peculiar difficulties, help but say, ‘Who is sufficient for these things?’ But with simple confidence and trust we may and do say, ‘Our sufficiency is of God.’”

Her daughter Lily married after their return to Africa. Louisa retired because of ill health in 1911. Lily continued to serve for many years in South Rhodesia. Her mother passed away after a long illness in 1917 at her home in Penkridge near the Mutambara Mission, fifty miles from Umtali. Following her death, it was recorded that Christians in South Rhodesia continued to sing her hymn in the local Shona language.

While the exact date of the composition is not known, sometime between 1880-1882, Lousia Stead’s hymn was first published in Songs of Triumph (1882). The Rev. Carlton R., Young, editor of The United Methodist Hymnal, describes the hymn’s content as “a series of loosely connected key evangelical words and phrases.” Indeed, the hymn is full of the language of piety common to the day in evangelical circles. Furthermore, the succession of stanzas lacks the usual progression of ideas leading to heaven that characterizes most gospel hymns.

Perhaps the hymn might be best described as a mantra on the name of Jesus. Indeed, “Jesus” is sung twenty-five times if one sings all four stanzas and the refrain. Stanza one is a simple statement of “trust in Jesus.” The singer is invited to “rest upon his promise.” Though the “promise” is not specifically articulated, it is assumed that all know that this is the promise of salvation. The stanza ends with “Thus saith the Lord” – a phrase, interestingly enough, that appears 413 times in the Old Testament in the King James Version, and is a reference to God rather than Jesus.

Stanza two continues the theme of trust, drawing upon the “cleansing blood” of Jesus. The poet demonstrates her trust as she “plung[es] … neath the healing, cleansing flood,” a possible reference to the William Cowper (1731-1800) hymn, “There is a fountain filled with blood”: “… and sinners plunge beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.” The typology of the cleansing flood may find its biblical roots in Genesis 6-7, the account of Noah and the great flood, or perhaps the blood and water that flowed from the crucified Christ’s side (John 19:34), or even a conflation of these ideas. Cowper’s hymn was probably well known to Stead, and she referenced it in her hymn.

Stanza three stresses that one should die to “sin and self” by “simply taking life and rest, and joy and peace” in Jesus. Stanza four is a personal witness by the author that she is “so glad I learned to trust thee.” The final stanza concludes with a fleeting eschatological reference, “thou art with me, wilt be with me to the end.” Though this reference to heaven is not as pronounced as one would often find in similar gospel hymns of this era, especially in Fanny Crosby. Referencing heaven in some way is virtually obligatory in this theological context.

The refrain establishes the Jesus mantra, singing his name five times, the last strengthened by adding the qualifying, “precious Jesus.” Though the singer has “proved him o’er and o’er,” the prayer is for “grace to trust him more.”

C. Michael Hawn is University Distinguished Professor of Church Music, Perkins School of Theology, SMU.

Attribution: Photo (The old red books or red worship songbooks in church) courtesy of Wirestock at: https://www.freepik.com/ijeab

“You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you.”

— Song of Solomon 4:7 [ESV].

Yasssss...... here.. :)) cant find the original version though.... :( this one by Lindsey Novitske

Shalom.

I will be happy.

I will be healthy.

I will be financially stable.

I will prosper.

I will succeed.

Cannot Wait to see you Again.... :-)

“The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman.”

-Malcolm X (1962)

(Originally found on insta from @ashleighchubbybunny)

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BEAUTY FROM WITHIN? #blackisbeautiful #blackisgenius#black_is_twice_as_good

GOOD THINGS ARE COMING!