your image is not your legacy

I was doing some thinking this evening while I was out running -- well, jogging, anyway -- okay, lumbering might be the best description of what I look like out there these days.

My thoughts this evening were about these oft-elusive things we pursue through exercise, about my desire to shed eight or nine pounds of baby weight, about God as our creator and about body image and raising daughters and other such things.

The truth is that it is hard for me to really believe what God most likely believes about our bodies: that God doesn't find a 5'8" woman more beautiful than a 5'4" woman, that he doesn't think a model is more beautiful than an average mom.  And that it is God's thoughts on these matters that, well, matter.

And this is a problem, because I have two daughters and I need to be able to teach them from a place of sincere conviction the truth about these things.

So, it was probably a good thing that after my jog, I happened across this piece by Glennon Melton: Your Body Is Not Your Masterpiece.  Some good thoughts there.

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"Stop spending all day obsessing, cursing, perfecting your body like it's all you've got to offer the world. Your body is not your art, it's your paintbrush. Whether your paintbrush is a tall paintbrush or a thin paintbrush or a stocky paintbrush or a scratched up paintbrush is completely irrelevant. What is relevant is that YOU HAVE A PAINTBRUSH which can be used to transfer your insides onto the canvas of your life..."       ~ Glennon Melton of Momastery

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It is easy to feel, in this age of cell phone cameras, Instagram, digital photographs, and blogs with perfect pictures galore, that what you look like is your legacy.  It isn't.  

I am a big advocate of healthy eating, healthy moving, healthy living.  But health shouldn't be the only end goal. Pursue health so that you can go out and do all the things you want to do, be it playing in a symphony, taking your kids to the park, reading, spending time with family and friends, fixing up an old house, gardening... you get the idea.  Those are some of the thing I love to do, anyway, and I'd better make sure my desire for a certain kind of 'paintbrush' in this life doesn't keep me from doing the 'painting' I'm supposed to be doing.

There you have it, friends.  Go ye therefore and get painting!