The Dollar Store

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Welcome to the Dorie's Stories {devotional} Blog!

It was a sad day. It can't be true. They all said it would happen eventually. It was inevitable.

The definitive dollar store is gone.

Now everything's ...

$1.25

It's only a quarter, they say. $1.25 is the new $1, they say.

This next devotional story is a callback to an earlier time, a simpler time when dollar stores actually sold everything for an exact dollar.

From my book, Hope Looks Good on You!: a Comedian's Joy-inducing Daily Devotional for Women

. . .

Chapter 6: The Dollar Store

So, I’m at the dollar store...the real dollar store where every item is actually one dollar. I’m a frugal person and this is my paradise. I walk around like I own the place.

I throw items into my cart with such confidence knowing that I can buy anything in this store — and I do.

I could bankrupt my family at the Dollar Tree®.

Not so much at Macy’s® or Nordstrom® because I won’t even go into stores like those. They are just my gateway to the mall. I almost run through them so I don’t accidentally break something and have to pay for it!

But not so with the Dollar Tree®.

I always stay in the dollar store too long. I seem to think it’s some kind of requirement to go up and down every aisle. Sometimes I’m in there so long, I know the store employees are thinking, ‘she is definitely stealing stuff.’

Although I have never actually stolen anything from a dollar store, some of the deals feel like a steal! Portable soap dishes, ‘silk’ flowers, potpourri, discontinued make-up, 1000 staples and mini stapler sets, rain ponchos, multi-colored chip clips...for a dollar?

How are they making any money on this stuff?

Okay, I admit that I haven’t bought potpourri in years. I’m not sure why they are still selling it.

My favorite, though, is the as-seen-on-tv section. I love infomercials, but I wait to buy the products at the dollar store...because that’s when you know they really work.

It was there in the middle of one of my lengthy dollar store shopping trips that I felt God speak to my heart and whisper something like:

‘Why do you walk with confidence through the dollar-store-level issues in your life, but when it comes to the Macy’s-level issues, you still walk in so much fear? Don’t you know I am big enough, my shoulders are wide enough, and even your biggest problems look small to Me?’

Only God would know to speak to me with a shopping metaphor!

It was the truth. I had been able to trust Him with the small stuff...the things I could almost handle on my own.

I had easily navigated through minor illnesses, everyday bills, and the ups and downs of my teenagers’ emotions, but I found myself struggling with anxiety when it came to the big stuff and the uncertainty of the future as if God doesn’t have what it takes for those types of things.

In this season, my son had turned seventeen and my father had turned seventy and I realized that neither would be young forever. I was exiting one stage of life that I felt like I had just figured out; and I was entering a new stage of life that I didn’t feel ready for.

I was waking up morning after morning with anxiety and fear to the point that my chest would hurt and feel like there was an actual weight on it.

Maybe since I hadn’t been spending much time in prayer those mornings, God had to meet me in the dollar store!