I like to run in the mornings. But once a week, I go to a bonafide gym to attend a weight training class that kicks my butt.

After the class, I run on the treadmill for 2 miles for as fast as I possibly can. I like to think there are ultimate pacing benefits to this, but mostly I do it because it makes me feel good. Then I pick up my daughter from the gym’s daycare, and we go swimming at the pool. It’s a sacred ritual, and I love it.

This week, we had a different instructor at the class. We were working on our pectoral muscles, and she was showing us how to do the exercise correctly, as doing it wrong, or “cheating”, if you will, could cause injury.

“And I can tell I’m doing it right, well, because, okay, this is too much personal information, I know, but I have implants, and when I do this correctly, my muscles push my breasts into my armpits!” She laughed, and then said, “But hey, I nursed 3 babies for 4 years. I calculated how much money I saved our family by not buying formula, and then told my husband that I earned these.” We did a few more reps, and then she continued.

“I mean, my MIL was horrified. She told me ‘It’s just vanity run amok!’ And I told her that hey, there are people who won’t leave the house without make-up. That’s vanity, too.”

And she continued to count out the reps, having switched from pecs to hamstrings, and I thought, “And there are people (like me) who take hours out of their day to come to the gym so that their butts look good. Is that vanity run amok?”

This class came on the heels of an awesome institute lesson where we discussed this talk by Elder Bednar. It was one of those times when you hear something that just screams Truth. When, like JS said, you know it’s truth because it’s tastes good.

Basically, the talk is about charity, and how Christ was an example of charity. And it wasn’t the normal trite stuff, like He loved everybody, He was gentle and kind and meek, He did good things. I mean, yeah, Christ was all those things, but Elder Bednar talked about how Christ is the ultimate example of charity because during the moments of His greatest anguish, when another person’s instinct would be to turn inward to suffer, He turned outward. Healing the guard’s ear, worrying about Mary, comforting the robbers who hung on crosses next to His. Turning outward to comfort others while you yourself are suffering–that is what charity means. And it is not something we gain easily, it is not something that comes without effort or strengthening from the Lord. But when charity owns us, when our instinct is to turn outward instead of inward, it is powerful stuff.

Which brings me back to my gym class. There is nothing quite like exercise to make you turn, well, inward. You are focusing on your body, on your muscles, on what you look like. It’s sort of, um, vain. Right?

I think that instructor was right. Everybody is vain, in one degree or another. Every woman I know wants to look nice to feel good about herself, and whether she accomplishes that through make-up, hair dye, boob jobs, or craziness like running at 6am in 25 degree weather, I think the motivations are basically the same.

So my question is, is vanity an enemy to charity? Can a person be vain and charitable at the same time? We all know that vanity CAN run amok (with some occasionally tragic results), but are there degrees of vanity that are “allowed”? Are vanity and pride the same thing?

Okay, so that’s more than one question. Sorry. You can address all or only one in your comment :)

And I do urge you to take a look at Elder Bednar’s talk if you get the chance. It really does taste good.

UPDATE: Just found a quote from Elder Maxwell that goes along with this: “Empathy during agony is a portion of divinity.”

Okay, WOW.