"Don't you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God?" 1 Corinthians 6:19
I've had a lot of people come up to me and ask, why have I made myself look like this? Why have I ruined the temple that God made my body into? Why do I wear makeup? Why do I have piercings? Why do I have tattoos? The answer to this is simple; my body isn't my temple. My body is my art gallery.
I believe that all modifications to your body are artwork. You were born with this blank canvas that you get to design however you like. That's the beauty of it. You have so many options on what you get to do. You get to choose how unique you want to be from everyone else. You can change as little or as much of yourself that you want. You want to tattoo a butterfly on your shoulder? Do it. You want to get a Marilyn Monroe piercing? Do it. You want to wear a face full of makeup every day? Do it.
"But God didn't make you that way."
No, God made me with the ability to change myself to look the way that I want to look. He gave me all of the necessary tools to be able to make myself into the masterpiece that I want to be. As long as I'm loving myself, why should my appearance mean anything to anyone else?
"How do you love God and have tattoos?"
I'm still trying to understand how these two relate to each other. However, my comeback for this is Romans 8:37-39 "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Meaning that God isn't going to not love me because I have some ink in my skin.
It's important to take these words with a grain of salt. I think that the biggest problem here is the assumption that if you want to change yourself, you are no good. For a modern-day believer in all things good and bad with a slight sense of the love of our Lord, I don't feel resented for wanting to make my canvas as colorful and "mine" as possible. Our bodies are our own.