THE FACE

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“Argh!” was all I could mutter under my breath as I bit my lips to stifle a scream: “Stop it!” 

Tooth extraction? No. Migraine headache? Neither.

Guess what, I went for a face treat in one of those popular derma salons and got an ache trip instead. The facial proved to be total agony; the eye brow threading pure unadulterated torture.

How could women stand all that pain? And for what? The funny part was, I didn’t see an Angelina Jolie when I looked at myself in the mirror.

My eyes still wore their baggy pants. (When my aging mother was alive, she’d call them eyes bags, surreptitiously framed by no-grade spectacles.) And my vertical facial lines still ran to and fro like tracks converging at a train station between my senior eyes.

Had I complained, someone could have thrown me the look: “What you need is a face lift!”  So I kept my lips zipped. (Just imagining its cost is cause for more sleepless nights; naturally, more eyes bags.)

No wonder I tried to decline when my sister offered to treat me to a facial. But hey, a treat is always a treat; and my Ate Marcia was so kind. So I relented.

I realized soon enough that the reason I didn’t enjoy facials that much was the prospect of someone unearthing my face of dirt and grime—and white and black and whatever despicable heads—like she were mining for coal. (At least coal has its economic benefits.)

But “The Face” business has really become a booming industry, with more and more women going for facial treatments—including botox injections, face, lip and nose lifts—an ego lift actually, to reverse the onslaught of gravity and years of battling it out to survive on planet earth.

It helps of course that Hollywood and mass media have reminded us non-stop that beauty is all about having smooth unruffled skin, a narrow and aquiline nose, or lips as plump as Jolie’s; and body as reed-thin as Jolie’s (again!).

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Had I complained, someone could have thrown me the look: “What you need is a face lift!”

An online source predicts a $267 billion global beauty industry in 2017. In the Philippines, “whitening” products and services have grown dramatically.

It is said that whenever the Philippine economy is on a slump, sale of cosmetic products dramatically go up. My Marketing mentor explained it this way: “If people don’t have much to eat, they want to at least feel good about themselves.”

Some food for thought, huh. But an eye opener on how our priorities have shifted as marketers tried to condition our minds about indulging in more pleasurable and sensual experiences to mask life’s real issues.

It’s a sign of good stewardship if we take care of our health, including the only face and body God gave us—as long as we are not overtaken by vanity; or your hard-earned sweldo (salary) flies away and your creditors swoop down on you because of your unpaid bills.

“Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised,” Proverbs 31:30

Besides, the Lord reminds us that what’s inside matters more. 1 Samuel 16:7 “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature… For the Lord sees not as man sees. Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

“Godliness is of value in every way,” says 1 Timothy 4:8, because “it holds promise both for the present life and the life to come.”

A facial may momentarily make you look polished; but come to think of it, greater scrubbing of our insides comes from spending more time in His Word.

Believe you me, it is because of these quiet times with God that I get comments like, “You’re glowing!”

Recently published at http://cbnasia.org/home/2014/05/the-face/