Back To Home Page To Archives - Spring of Life - H. Roger Bothwell The Ultimate Gift Certificate Tis' the season to redeem all those great gift certificates we got for Christmas. I love gift certificates. They are wonderful ways to shop for people without shopping for people. It's fun to sit around the tree and open envelopes where we exchange money without exchanging money. Just think how tacky it would be to open an envelope and receive a hundred dollar bill while the person who gave it to you opened the envelope you gave and he or she takes out the hundred you gave them. Hey, you're even. What a great Christmas. Ah, there's the secret of the gift certificate. It shows you care. You thought of a specific store. The person can't use the hundred to pay the light bill. Gift certificates actually end up costing us money because we can't get a purchase to come out to the exact amount. We cannot bear to leave a couple dollars unspent because we don't want the store to keep the extra. So, we end up spending over the certificate amount so we get it all. Now this might sound like I don't like gift certificates. Not so! I love them as long as they are to Barnes and Noble and not The Dollar Store. Christmas really is all about the ultimate gift certificate. Just think. God gave us a gift certificate to spend now and in the future. When we use it now we receive forgiveness of sins and the removal of guilt. For the future we have eternal life and a heavenly shopping tour that will never end. Wow. That's my idea of a gift certificate. I'm Roger Bothwell and my address is roger.bothwell@verizon.net or 151 Old Farm Rd. Leominster, MA 01453. Thank you for your support of our faith ministry. Past devotionals can be accessed at Archives