Five Minute Friday - Store

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One word. Five minutes to write about it. This is the idea behind Five Minute Friday and this is today's free-writing post.

go to the store

store-bought

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Some people enjoy shopping, but most of the time, I can't say that I find it very pleasant. I don't mind grocery shopping, or going to a specific store that I'm confident will have the things I need, but it's very rare that I have any interest in wandering through a store or mall just to see what's there. This time of year we are shopping for Christmas gifts, and while I love giving things to my loved ones, I am not a huge fan of the process of going to store after store hunting for things that are on the various wishlists.

Thank God we're living in a country where the sky's the limit, the stores are open late and you can shop in bed thanks to television. ~Joan Rivers

The odds of going to the store for a loaf of bread and coming out with only a loaf of bread are three billion to one. ~Erma Bombeck

All the shopping and time spent in stores seems like an inevitable part of this season. We want to give gifts so we go to the stores looking for the perfect things. We'll probably wrap the gifts so we go to the store for wrapping paper. We like decorating our homes so we go to the stores for ornaments and wreaths and knick-knacks and Christmas-themed hand towels, even though we have perfectly good 'everyday' hand towels. We want new clothes or a Christmas sweater for the holidays parties, or matching holiday pajamas for the family, so we go to the store to find what we want. We do extra baking for the holidays and want to prepare a Christmas feast so we go to the grocery store for all the ingredients we need.

There's nothing wrong with any of that, unless we spend money we don't have, or unless we're looking for satisfaction and fulfillment in the store. We won't find it there.

Too many people spend money they haven't earned to buy things they don't want to impress people they don't like. ~Will Rogers

There are lots of stores that sell the things we need to live physically ― food, medicine, clothing ― but the things we need to live abundant and meaningful lives ― peace, contentment, joy, purpose ― are not sold in any store.

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you ― you of little faith?
"So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."

~Matthew 6:25-33~

"Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters;

and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.

Why spend money on what is not bread,

and your labor on what does not satisfy?

Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,

and you will delight in the richest of fare."

~Isaiah 55:1-2~

And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. it came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more. ~Dr Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

 

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I went to a general store but they wouldn't let me buy anything specific. ~Steven Wright

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This post is linked at Five Minute Friday for the word prompt "Store".

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