Embracing Imperfection (or) My Face: I Guess I'll Keep It

Today I had a doctor show me different pictures of how my face would look if I were to fix my mild class 3 occlusion (also known as an underbite).  Yes, I have been blessed with a strong, powerful, super-human German jaw.  It doesn't give me too much of a problem other than this slight cross-bite I've developed since high school, because the jaw just kept growing.  Even after my teeth were all nice and straight from the braces I had at age thirteen.  My jaw didn't care at all. It just followed it's genetic instruction and jutted right out there, confusing my teeth a bit along the way.  You know, the funny thing is that I always liked that about myself.  My jaw. My German jaw from Grandpa's side.  It wasn't until a dentist pointed it out to me that I started to feel a little self-conscious about it, and eventually into full concern.  After my babies, I decided to look into jaw surgery a little more.  I went to an oral surgeon a few weeks ago for him to take x-rays, pictures, and get his opinion.  Today I returned to his office for the full analysis.  He showed me Photoshopped pictures of what my profile would look like with lower jaw surgery, chin surgery alone (kind of wondered how that would fix my bite?) He talked about upper and lower jaw surgery and how that could make my nose protrude more, so he could add to my cheek bones to balance out all that... take a little here, add a little there... basically build a new face for me.  After 32 years, I was finally getting used to the one I have.

 http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?

I started to think, If I wanted a perfect face, like movie star, magazine-quality face, would I really start with my jaw? Why not my nose? Or even cheek implants sounds a lot easier than upper jaw surgery (which entails a few years of braces and having your face cut in half and wired back together...) 

It all sounded like a lot of time, money, and pain, and not a lot of benefit.  I'm not saying it isn't right for some people, and that it isn't a huge blessing for those who have a bite so extreme that they have trouble talking or chewing their food.  But for me... I think it's more of an issue of vanity, and wanting to meet up with society's standard for beauty. What I think would be even more awesome than being perfectly beautiful, would be having the inner strength and grace to ACCEPT imperfection.  I'm not perfect. Why pretend to be?  How about embracing imperfection? How about embracing humanity and mortality and the need for a perfect God to bring me contentment and completion?  I feel a toast coming on...  

Here's to balding men that don't comb-over.

Here's to the flat-chested girls who never dream of augmentation.

Here's to silver hair.

Here's to wrinkles. Beautiful creases, gentle or deep; roadmaps of lives well lived, tears well cried, laughs well laughed.

Here's to being imperfect.

Here's to being real.