This is not exactly a topic of Christmas cheer, but it’s what’s on my mind, so it’s what’s coming out.

In the car the other night I heard some of the John Tesh radio show (and it totally made my ears BLEED by the way) and the topic was how much money people spend to ensure that they will look good at their funerals. Apparently, it’s all the rage now to drop a load on botox and the like after you’re dead to ensure that you’ll look peaceful, young, and glamorous WHILE YOU’RE LAYING IN A COFFIN.

Please, people. The minute I die I am gonna be in heaven with Jesus. HEAVEN! This is the minute my body and my vanity cease to exist! So, (sorry mom) cremate that B****! Burn me UP. The body is not gonna matter anymore. And seriously, if you want to look at my dead body, you have major problems which I am just NOT gonna enable.

Burn me up, and then have a party. I LOVE life, but I am going to love what comes next even more. Very possibly because in heaven I am counting on being totally gorgeous without ever having to style my hair or pluck my eyebrows.

Paradise!

“For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him.” Romans 6:9

Hope you all have a beautiful day with your families!

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Photo by photoholic1 on Flickr

I was going to sit down and write a grumpy post about how I hate daylight savings time, and how it is so dark by 6:00 p.m. every night that I just want to give up and go bury myself in a hole until spring. BUT – then I thought – who wants to read that? So I decided to think about what I was thankful for.

I am thankful for my new boots.

A few weeks ago at BlissDom, I made a new friend, Laurin, of Laurin and Kelly Talk (she also writes for Blissful Style.) Laurin is way cool and stylish and she, like me, has to share writes her blog with another person. We pretty much hit it off, and over the course of our convo we started talking about boots. She had on some pretty kickin’ (pun TOTALLY intended) ones and I was in need of a pair of tall, brown boots. (We all know I didn’t really need boots. But I didn’t have any and would have loved a pair.) So, I challenged her to find me a pair, a nice pair, that I could afford.

The next Sunday, I saw a $30 pair of tall brown boots in the Target ad. They were cute, and I had a $25 gift certificate to Target, so I decided I’d get those. Then a couple of days later I got an email from Laurin with some different boots she’d found for me. They were awesome, but they were all like $189. I basically have no clothing budget for myself, I just shop after Christmas and my birthday and whenever else I have a need and we have the cash. So, these beautiful boots were out of the question. (But seriously Laurin, I appreciated your scoutin’ them out for me!) I emailed Laurin back and said “Hmm, maybe if I get any money for Christmas…” but I was pretty sure I was just going to buy those $30 Target boots. I DO love Target, after all, and they were cute and in my price range.

Then, not two hours later, I got an email from Alli, aka Mrs. Fussypants, the owner of Blissfully Domestic, aka the World’s Best Boss. The good folks at You by Crocs had asked her to review their new boots, and she said, “Sure, I’d love to, but I’d like you to throw in a pair for my editor at Blissful Style too.”

We got to pick ANY PAIR WE WANTED.

The pair I picked was $300.00. Ok, $299.99. But seriously. I was going to buy the $30 pair and I got a FREE PAIR worth TEN TIMES as much! You can read my full review of them here at Blissful Style. They are amazing, but once again, this is not about the boots. This is about things that happen to me that I don’t deserve, that are not coincidences. This is about how God gave me a nice, expensive, high-quality pair of boots two hours after I’d confessed to a friend that I was going to have to settle for cheapies.

And once again, I didn’t NEED the boots. I could go on living a very good life without tall, brown boots. But I have a God who does this crap for me just to show his amazing love. It’s all about the little things. My dad recently told me that he used to keep a list of the little things that God did for him, and I think I’m going to start doing the same! In my previous post on this subject, I received a comment from someone who found my faith a bit ludicrous. She conjectured that if there was a God, he would certainly be too busy to care about my little needs. But I argue that He is a God who can and does handle it all – big or little, needs or wants, joys or sorrows – He’s big enough. He gives us good gifts just to show his love – and I’ve got the boots to prove it.