I clearly have shopping on my mind. Really, who doesn’t? First we have 24×7 advertising and reporting on “Black Friday”, “Cyber Monday”, and an incredible amount of supersized holiday shopping media blitzes everywhere. It is, after all, the biggest marketing cycle of the year. It seems to start before Thanksgiving and doesn’t end until those “after holiday sales” in January. For those of us who gave up shopping until we dropped, it doesn’t matter. We get exhausted just observing others go through it. Then there are always the financial and emotional aspects of all this shopping. Sometimes a different take on the whole experience can help us regroup and refocus.
Recently I re-posted one of my articles about shopping. It was a start, but some of the most useful and thoughtful guidance I have received came from a sermon. It became an important part of how I deal with the craziness of the intense comsumerism of the holidays. It is a message based on the Christian celebration of Christmas. The sermon (or message) is called “Shopping for the Glory of God”. I came to experience this sermon over and over because it became part of the work my friend Emily Mann and I did with creator of this message, Rev. Dr. Marti Zimmerman. The three of us together collaborated on what developed into a book called First You Dream, A Financial Management Workbook. The sermon is one of six in the workbook and they all focus on money, consumerism, and faith. I personally typed all those sermons for the manuscript, so I am pretty well acquainted with them!
I hope you will take a few minutes to experience the power of Marti’s s words and an alternative view of shopping for Christmas and holidays. Just click here.
Until next time.
Debra J. Hadsall
Financial Freedom Party for Women (FFP)-Talk 
Leave a Reply