John Piper observes:

All of the 10,000 people in America who turn 65 each year have wrinkles. Our skin is more flaccid. Our complexion is more mottled. Our equilibrium is more tenuous. And our hair is more scarce. The effect of aging on our appearance and our bearing is universal. No one escapes. Except by death.

The reason for this is that God has subjected the creation to futility (Romans 8:20). It is in bondage to corruption (Romans 8:21). Even new creatures in Christ groan, waiting for the redemption of our bodies (Romans 8:23).

In other words, when sin entered the world through Adam and Eve, God established a connection between moral depravity and physical deterioration. He intended to make clear that, even if we ignore the dreadfulness of a sinful heart, we will not be able to ignore its witness in the debility of the body.

This is a hard pill for beautiful and robust Boomers to swallow. We have been strong. We have been pretty. Even sexy. And now we realize: We will never have it back. It is over. For good. Until death stops the process we will only get weaker, more wrinkled, more mottled.

Some of us cannot let it go. We resort to plastic surgery in the hopeless attempt to make the looks of youth last a little longer. An article in Psychology Today observes,

Cosmetic surgery is still on the increase throughout developed countries. . . The “looks industry” is alive and well.

But the fix might be more in the head than on the face. Joshua Zimm, from the University of Toronto and his colleagues published a study in 2013 showing that facial cosmetic surgery does not significantly enhance attractiveness and only reduces perceived age by 3.1 years.

The growth of cosmetic surgery is not a reflection of the increasing ugliness of people but a reflection of our increasing negative self-perception. The fact that cosmetic surgery is still increasing in popularity despite showing little positive outcome – objective measure of attractiveness or youth – points again to our desire to become perfect. People who want this perfection don’t even do the proper research first, such as checking out the victorian cosmetic institute statistics on these types of surgeries, making them woefully unprepared.

In other words, Boomers don’t look older than previous generations. But we are less content with looking older, which is why most people are looking for the best mommy makeover Denver has to offer to keep that young look and stay beautiful. We crave the power and the beauty our bodies once had. We are, to a large extent, still adolescent in our thinking about our looks.

Let the Christian Boomers turn this this around…

Read the rest here.