WARNING: THIS IS NOT MEANT TO OFFEND- I TEND TO BE PASSIONATE ABOUT CERTAIN THINGS AND I CAN'T SHAKE THESE FEELINGS I HAVE BEEN HAVING SO I HAVE TO SHARE THIS- IF YOU DISAGREE WITH ME THAT IS FINE I DON'T THINK LESS OF YOU OR LOOK AT YOU DIFFERENTLY-FEEL FREE TO LET ME KNOW HOW YOU FEEL OR JUST IGNORE WHAT I HAVE TO SAY.
At game night last week, we finished off by playing a fun game where we were asked a question and then we all put down our answer and one person had to figure out who put which answer down. One of the last questions was "If you could have any surgery what part of your body would you pick?" The discussion that followed has stuck with me and prompted this post. I can not shake the sadness that has filled me since that talk about plastic surgery. I was somewhat surprised by how many ladies are planning on having cosmetic surgery. I joke about it with Nate sometimes- I always tell him I am going to get a breast reduction as soon as we are rich, but in reality I would never do that unless it became medically necessary. I totally understand where these ladies are coming from- who doesn't want to look better, feel sexier, be as perfect as the countless models and actresses that are throw in our faces on a daily basis? But in the eternal scheme of things, is this really what is important to you? What are you saying to your Creator? I don't think you made me right so I am going to take matters into my own hands and risk my life to have surgery to look like someone else? Heavenly Father gave us each a specific body and face for a reason. Our life on this earth is about trials and learning and growing from those trials. The Lord wants us to learn to love and accept ourselves for who we are not who a doctor can make us! I remember one time, I was just out of high school and my little sister and I were in our bathroom trying to dye our hair by ourselves for the first time. My dad walks by the open door, and with a sad shake of his head he muttered to himself, "Why can't they be happy with what God gave them?" That has had a huge impact on me. Why can't we be happy and make the most of what we were given? I struggle with this everyday, but it is something I am working on, not by saving money for a nose job, boob reduction, and liposuction, but by exercising, eating right, and building my relationship with my Heavenly Father - hoping that soon I can learn to love myself the way that He loves me. So many thoughts have been going through my head and heart this past five days. I have shed a few tears over this- what are we teaching our daughters?????? How will they ever learn to accept themselves and others if they see us not accepting ourselves and having these surgeries?????? What message are we sending to those precious young spirits? What are we saying to our beloved Prophets and Apostles? That we know what you say about these things, but we don't care. It is more important to us to have big boobs or skinny thighs than to follow the teachings of our leaders and our Savior? My heart aches over the number of women in the church who have these cosmetic procedures done. Please understand that how you look is not nearly as important as who you are and what kind of life you lead. I can't imagine how sad our Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ are to look down on this world they created and see their beautiful daughters, whom They love intensely, risking so much (spiritually, physically,and monetarily) to have "better" bodies. What about the husband who encourage this and push for this? I feel they are just as much to blame as our media. "Husbands love you wives as Christ loved the church"-completely, whole heartedly, and without regard to the bodily changes that come naturally with time.
Elder Holland has said,"
In this same vein may I address an even more sensitive subject. I plead with you young women to please be more accepting of yourselves, including your body shape and style, with a little less longing to look like someone else. We are all different. Some are tall, and some are short. Some are round, and some are thin. And almost everyone at some time or other wants to be something they are not! But as one adviser to teenage girls said: “You can’t live your life worrying that the world is staring at you. When you let people’s opinions make you self-conscious you give away your power. … The key to feeling [confident] is to always listen to your inner self—[the real you.]” And in the kingdom of God, the real you is “more precious than rubies.” Every young woman is a child of destiny and every adult woman a powerful force for good. I mention adult women because, sisters, you are our greatest examples and resource for these young women. And if you are obsessing over being a size 2, you won’t be very surprised when your daughter or the Mia Maid in your class does the same and makes herself physically ill trying to accomplish it. We should all be as fit as we can be—that’s good Word of Wisdom doctrine. That means eating right and exercising and helping our bodies function at their optimum strength. We could probably all do better in that regard. But I speak here of optimum health; there is no universal optimum size.
Frankly, the world has been brutal with you in this regard. You are bombarded in movies, television, fashion magazines, and advertisements with the message that looks are everything! The pitch is, “If your looks are good enough, your life will be glamorous and you will be happy and popular.” That kind of pressure is immense in the teenage years, to say nothing of later womanhood. In too many cases too much is being done to the human body to meet just such a fictional (to say nothing of superficial) standard. As one Hollywood actress is reported to have said recently: “We’ve become obsessed with beauty and the fountain of youth. … I’m really saddened by the way women mutilate [themselves] in search of that. I see women [including young women] … pulling this up and tucking that back. It’s like a slippery slope. [You can’t get off of it.] … It’s really insane … what society is doing to women.”
In terms of preoccupation with self and a fixation on the physical, this is more than social insanity; it is spiritually destructive, and it accounts for much of the unhappiness women, including young women, face in the modern world. And if adults are preoccupied with appearance—tucking and nipping and implanting and remodeling everything that can be remodeled—those pressures and anxieties will certainly seep through to children. At some point the problem becomes what the Book of Mormon called “vain imaginations.” And in secular society both vanity and imagination run wild. One would truly need a great and spacious makeup kit to compete with beauty as portrayed in media all around us. Yet at the end of the day there would still be those “in the attitude of mocking and pointing their fingers” as Lehi saw, because however much one tries in the world of glamour and fashion, it will never be glamorous enough.
A woman not of our faith once wrote something to the effect that in her years of working with beautiful women she had seen several things they all had in common, and not one of them had anything to do with sizes and shapes. She said the loveliest women she had known had a glow of health, a warm personality, a love of learning, stability of character, and integrity. If we may add the sweet and gentle Spirit of the Lord carried by such a woman, then this describes the loveliness of women in any age or time, every element of which is emphasized in and attainable through the blessings of the gospel of Jesus Christ."
Please love yourselves. Be patient in this life with your body- you have eternity to live with a perfected body. And only God knows what true perfection is- let Him, who knows all and loves most, be your surgeon.
