“When I shop, the world gets better, and the world is better, but then it’s not, and I need to do it again.”

—

Confessions of a Shopaholic

I watched this movie again last night and felt all weird and sad when I heard this line. Because it’s a little true for me. Things are better when I’m shopping, when I find the perfect thing at the best price. I feel so good.

But then I go home and I wear whatever it is and then I wash it and then a week later it isn’t new or perfect anymore and I want to go shopping again. And the shopping is wonderful. But the shopping ends. And so does the wonderful.

I wonder why we don’t talk more at church about buying—about the power “things” can have over us—and not even things so much as the acquisition of things.

I’d like to hear a sermon on shopping, on how to translate that desire to identify and collect beauty, into a more healthy, less selfish behavior. Because I think it stems from something pure and grows into something ugly. Like most addictions, right? We take a beautiful thing like sex and turn it into pornography. We take a beautiful thing like clothing your children and turn it into materialism or pride or, maybe worse, a way to fill the hole inside us.

I’d like to think I’m winning my struggle with shopping. I’m not financially irresponsible. But it is a spiritual struggle, a battle to look for comfort and satisfaction in God and not in half-priced leather boots.