FLAWLESS FABULOUS DEAL

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To tattoo or not to tattoo? This was one of our recent topics in class.

"It's really about your convictions."  

"It disfigures."

"It depends on what the drawn image is all about. Skulls are pretty scary."

"Old testament prohibition; no longer applies."

There seems to be no end to the back and forth arguments about tattoos, is there?

My personal take on the topic? If God has made you and me wonderfully and fearfully, per Psalm 139:14, why indeed mess with it? Could anyone add or subtract to what God has done, when everything He created was "very good" according to Genesis 1?

Have you watched this TV show featuring two doctors reconstructing patients' noses, lips, necks, breasts, tummies, derrieres―mind you even cheeks and abs―after earlier plastic surgeries botched by other surgeons?

Note that quite a number of these patients believed they could look prettier, younger, sexier or more buffed if they bought more of the same. 

Per Children's Hospital (Philadelphia) plastic surgery division psychologist Canice E. Crerand, PhD, plastic surgery addiction is more psychological than physical.

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Called body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), this addiction happens to one who's "preoccupied with a slight or imagined, defect (usually of the face); then obsessed with doing something about it. One study suggests that as many as one-third of nose-job patients exhibit BDD symptoms."

It's a different thing altogether if one goes under the knife because of health issues such as a breathing difficulty or obesity, or to remedy disfigurement.

Again, who's to judge? Cultural, family and many other factors contribute to individual choices. 

Today, however, we can consider a Hollywood-mass media-advertisers-internet confluence as having dictated this generation's concept of beauty―one which hails physical looks plus blings as greater than integrity of character.

Numbers do not lie. Both the tattoo and cosmetic surgery industries have grown by leaps and bounds, with US tattoo jobs totalling $2.3 billion dollars and cosmetic surgeries reaching $13.5 billion in 2014.  That's equivalent to all our country's BPO (business process operations) transactions combined.

It's a blessing in disguise that I don't have money to spare for even a double chin lop-off or a botox.

Honestly, even if one of my body parts is fixed today, surely others (e.g. tummy, arms, buttocks, etc.) are bound to droop and sag and fold anyway. So why even consider a lift? 

And if my butt gets augmented today―a whooping $4,000―Mama mia, I'd surely be in rigor mortis!  

I'd rather have this lift: Psalm 3:3 Jesus, my glory and the lifter of my head!

Moses knew how to get into that lift. He spent time with God, so much so that when he went down to face the Israelites, his face shone brightly.

That biblical account says too that God's presence remained with Moses wherever he went―something no gold or silver or the applause of men―or any tummy tuck for that matter―could ever replace.

What a flawless, fabulous deal!