In the bible, God talks about your body and that it is temple, that you should not do anything to harm it, you must keep it sacred for he made it. I agree with that statement, although my actions may not speak the same. But if I start to think about what He said, and by doing this I am not questioning the word of God, I ask myself… where does harming your “temple” start, to what extent is He implying? I mean, people dye their hair- that harms the condition of their hair and changes their natural “God-given” hair colour. People have plastic surgery done to enhance this or restructure that, thus changing their “God-given” face or body.
People take drugs and smoke cigarettes, thus certainly harming their inner body (organs etc.) People take pills and dietary tablets, of which ‘supposedly’ negatively affects your body systems and thus is harmful to your “temple”. But some harmful things are necessary, for instance, old people need to dye their grey hair and people with facial or body abnormalities need reconstructive surgery to fix their abnormalities. That brings me to my point.
When God talks about not doing harmful things to your body, is he referring to either, necessary things like reconstructive surgery for abnormalities or unnecessary things like surgery (breast implants), body piercing and tattoos of which we do not need to survive but mainly do it for pleasure or other reasons.
When I was in grade 8, I started to become aware of body piercing’s due to the mere fact that everyone started to get them. Belly button piercing’s/rings and earings on their upper ear. I was always interested in piercings, as they looked so cool on my friends, but couldn’t get any because my father didn’t approve. I mean, I wasn’t allowed ear rings (so small as that) until I was 15 years old. And, when you have restrictions, especially from your parents, you always want to overstep the boundaries.
So secretly, I decided to go and get a belly button piercing without the consent of my family. I mean, with my chubby stomach, I would never wear short tops as to expose my stomach, so it was perfect, no one ever knew. You see, I never got a belly ring so that I could show or tell anyone but I did it for my self, the thrill was so self-satisfying. Just to know I had one, was cool enough. And yes, to be quiet honest, I did kind of want one because my friends had them, but that was definitely not the only reason. I hid it quite well actually, no one noticed, no one even suspected.
Well, until…I was almost in grade 11, I think. My baby sister saw it one day and then everyone started to know after that. But surprisingly, my father (who hated rings) actually took it quite well, none of my parents were mad, I was actually quite relieved as I thought I may be grounded for the rest of my life. I never thought anything was wrong with a belly ring, I didn’t think it opposed God’s words of your body being a temple. I mean rings are temporary, you can take them out and I don’t think they cause to much harm, unless they get infected, but hey, mine never did. So I still kept it until matric, why take it out if it doesn’t harm your body? And if you are wondering, I don’t have any other piercings on my body, besides my ears, but I hardly every wear ear rings so my ear holes close up most of the time.
I have always liked tattoo’s, not the monstrous, scary one’s that cover your whole arm but the small tattoo’s, the cute, “harmless” ones.
My father and stepfather hated them, they found no point in putting ink in your skin and decorating your body as if it were a painting. My father always said that once they were on, it was a life time thing, you have to live with it when you are an old wrinkly granny of which the tattoo will become saggy and unattractive. I agree with him to some extent, in fact lets be real, I agree with him whole heartedly! But that never stopped me wanting one. Doesn’t it amaze you that even when we know all the harmful things something can do to us and the realism of it, we will still go forth and do it. It is almost like we turn a blind eye, almost like it’s temptation, when Adam ate the forbidden fruit-we are humans, we are not realistic enough to know the harmful side affects, yet we look at today and today only, not aware what it may bring in the future.
I kept saying to my father when I was younger… “you just wait, when I am 18 years old, I am going to get one just to spite you and then cover my whole body and get many piercings just to top it off… you just wait!” Obviously I said that to tick him off in a friendly way but I always knew I would get one, no matter what the age. The day came, it was the 29th of may. I was at the shops with my friend, my mother and her friend. My mother and her friend were getting their belly’s pierced, for giggles I think. We were all at the tattoo parlor, and out the blue I piped out: Ma I feel like a tattoo. ( I had always dropped hints and talked about getting one to all my parents, so they knew I wanted one) She surprisingly replied, okay. Maybe she was in a happy mood and felt generous or maybe it was her adrenaline of getting a piercing. I don’t know. But I was thrilled. Spontaneous things always get me hyped up, makes me not think straight…not realistic! Well, I ended up getting one. I was 17 years old.
My tattoo was very small, about one and half cm lengthwise and less than a centimeter high. It was a two-meaning tattoo. What I mean by this is that if you look straight at it, it looks like the Cross amongst hills, this means my religion is God and it represents my love for him. But if you look at it side ways it looks like the 3,4,5 numbers. 3 meant God, 4 meant the four elements of a human (physical, emotional, spiritual, mental) and 5 meant “Stace” which is my nickname and represents my individuality. You probably have no clue to what it looks like but the point I am trying to get to is that, my tattoo has so much meaning to me. I didn’t want to get a tattoo of a pretty picture of which had no underlining meaning. I wanted mine to represent something, to be special…to be unique.
I found that so many people got meaningless tattoo’s, I mean, what is the point- you are going to have it there for the rest of your life, the most you can do is get a tattoo that you will like forever, not just because it is fashionable today! I got my tattoo on my right side, lower hip, just next to my “private area”. I got it there because I didn’t want it somewhere where everyone could see it. Firstly because, honestly, where my parents could not see it as I was 17 and secondly and more importantly, because I didn’t want to go flash it around to everyone, due to the fact that the tattoo was for me and me alone. Some people would come to school and tell everyone as if they had got that tattoo to show everyone and supposedly to be cool. Also, when I would grow older, and if it was exposed, how would people react to seeing it. I liked where my tattoo was, in a personal place, because it was personal! All I can say is that if you decide to have one done, make sure it means a whole lot to you and don’t place it somewhere stupid. Be wise.
When I got home afterwards, and being a very over-analytical person, I once again began to think about what I had done. And the reason for me writing this chapter is so I can sort out my thoughts so the end result is less stress, like I said this book is to help all you readers and to also heal myself in the process, killing two birds with one stone. I started to almost have doubts, regrets almost and I had no reason why. I had always wanted a tattoo, this tattoo in fact. Maybe it was because it was still a bit of a shock that I actually got one, because to me a tattoo was always a big thing. Maybe because it was such a big thing, it made me feel like I was no longer a sweet and honest child, sounds pathetic I know. May be the loss of one’s innocence it quite saddening. But I was never really honest in the first place, I mean I wasn’t a rebel, I may have smoked but did nothing worse than that to lose my honesty and I still had my virginity. Maybe it was just because this was the biggest thing I had done in my life so far, maybe I felt guilty, almost disappointed in myself. But why? It didn’t change me as a person, I was still a nice girl. My tattoo was not something to disapprove of! I couldn’t figure out my feelings, and I started to feel over whelmed by emotion, but I didn’t cry. I didn’t regret the size of my tattoo, the meaning of it, the picture, or even were I put it… then what was it?
Maybe I felt that God was disappointed in me, because maybe it was ruining my temple. But it wasn’t a monstrous tattoo, it wasn’t displaying a bad meaning, it was actually a picture of a Cross, representing my love for Christ and that he was now permanently on my skin, in a sense, he would be with me all the time, I could never get rid of him which was good! It is not defying Christ or going against Him. Maybe I felt my parents were disappointed in me or the fear that they would find out and disown me or be very very disappointed in me, for that is the last thing I would ever want them to be. I couldn’t understand why most of my friends had tattoo’s but they never ever seemed affected the way I seemed to be. Maybe I am just an over analytical thinker and stressed too much, maybe I should’ve just relaxed, I was certainly making a big issue out of nothing!
