“A tree gives glory to God first of all by being a tree.”  ~ Thomas Merton

I wish I had scrawled that bit of truth on the bathroom mirror at the gym. I’m not prone to writing anything on any mirrors, even in my most desperate moods, but I was invited to do so by the poor, young employee the gym wrangled into this promotion. She stopped every woman as they strode past the mirror in an effort to leave the gym and get on with their lives. (Also, please note, it’s not a fancy gym: no fit young women in their 20’s. More like gray-haired women showering up after their water aerobics, which is starting to look really fun).

The employee asked if I would indulge her for a moment. She kicked off her pitch with, “a high percentage of women have low self-esteem…” (honestly, I glazed over when she launched in. I have been told since I was 13 years old about our collective low self-esteem and I’m over it.) The gym was asking me to look at myself in the mirror (wow, that’s a remarkable amount of sweat), take a deep breath and think of something that made me feel strong. Oh, how I wanted to laugh out loud.

I wrote a version of something friend Sarah told me when I was flagging as we were running up a hill together: “God gave you those legs, so use them!” Actually, it’s what her sister yelled at her during a race one time. She was trying to be sweet to me so I would run with her again, but that first quote is the one that stuck with me, and it’s the one that makes me feel strong and keeps me going when I’m all tired out.

This is why I can let go of the stupid low-self esteem regimen I’ve supposed to have been on for years. It’s not about what I think somebody else might think about my legs. It’s that I can use them. It’s not about what someone else wants for me or from me, rather it’s about who I am and the authenticity and peace I can create with my life.

Thomas Merton wrote that “A tree gives glory to God first of all by being a tree.” We’ve got this one chance to be ourselves, to live life our way, to learn what we can, to love with what we’ve got. That’s what I should have written on that mirror: “let’s just stop wasting our time with this one. There are so many wonderful things to taste and explore. And we get to be us doing all of them. So let’s just be us. Let’s just look in the mirror and relax and not change a thing and move on and bake some bread and try not to yell and eat a fresh raspberry and smile at our friends when we finally get to share coffee together and try to do some good work in the world and go to bed early.” Glorious. Truly glorious.