Jump directly to the Content Jump directly to the Content

Premenstrual Ministry

Maybe this curse is also a blessing

I was scrolling through headlines when the story caught my attention: yet another school shooting had resulted in yet another fatality. A young girl was dead at the hands of a classmate, her parents shattered by grief, her community forever changed. I felt undone. It was only 8:00 but I put myself to bed immediately, where I commenced with sobbing.

The next morning I got my period.

Ever since I was 12 years old, when I suddenly and inexplicably started despising my best friends for an imperceptible insult, the primary symptom of my monthly menstrual cycle has been extraordinary emotionalism. Other women get cramps; I get hysterical. I’ve learned to be almost thankful for my solitary physical symptom. If not for the tell-tale bloat that makes it nearly impossible to button my jeans, I wouldn’t be able to convince myself that I’m not deeply depressed or off my rocker. I’ve spend many a menstrual period making amends, having realized that I didn’t really despise my best friends nor, in more recent years, intend to divorce my husband. It was the hormones talking.

For several years I had a break from this crazy-making cycle, as pregnancy and breastfeeding granted me a temporary stay from the monthly rhythms of menstruation. I wasn’t fully exempt from the terrors of hormones; I endured an episode of postpartum depression and anxiety after the birth of my first daughter. I’m done bearing children now. Having decided that a hormonal birth control method that might curtail my premenstrual symptoms is tantalizing but not ultimately in the best interest of my overall health, I am back to having mild to moderate emotional breakdowns. On a monthly basis. Given that I’m still a decade or so from menopause, that’s a lot of breakdowns on the horizon.

I struggle with this manifestation of my gender (or, more accurately, my sex). My emotionalism make me feel irrational and unstable­—basically, as though I live into all of the most galling stereotypes about women and prove right the people who would limit female leadership for biologically determined reasons. But the fact of the matter is that I do have to be very mindful about the ways in which my hormones inform my behavior. Depending on where I am in my menstrual cycle, I could potentially respond quite differently to a contentious committee meeting, a well-meant comment about my preaching, or a tragic news headline.

And yet sometimes I wonder if this cyclical hypersensitivity is not all curse. Take, for instance, the night I wept for the high school senior who was shot and killed by a classmate. One might argue that my reaction was not commensurate with the circumstances. After all, I did not know the girl, or live in the town, or have any other immediate personal connection. When I’m premenstrual the veil that protects me from the sorrows of the world dissolves. I don’t have the option of turning away. I am charged—called, even—to pay attention, to bear witness, to let my heart be broken by that which should break my heart.

I think of the encounter Jesus had with the leper in the first chapter of Mark; my biblical translation reads that when faced with the leper’s suffering, Jesus was “moved with pity.” But the Greek word used in the sentence is splanchna, and it literally means “innards.” Which is to say that Jesus’s reaction to the man with leprosy was deeply visceral. The idiom we might use in English is “gut-wrenching.” Jesus­—our divine-yet-human savior—had an experience of physically symptomatic compassion, and it compelled him to reach out and heal the man.

For all the frustrations and inconveniences of my periodic emotional instability, I am learning to see it as a gift—even as a gift that I use in my ministry. If I am mindful and open, these swells of feeling can be an invitation to join Jesus in that experience of physically symptomatic compassion. It is an unusual spiritual practice, but given the beautifully incarnational nature of the Christian story, I think it works.

The trick, of course, is not to let my compassion stop when my period starts. The trick is to follow Jesus into actions of healing and hope—to be moved to act justly, love kindness, and walk humbly with my God.

Katherine Willis Pershey is an associate pastor of First Congregational Church of Western Springs and the author of Any Day a Beautiful Change: A Story of Faith and Family.

April02, 2015 at 2:30 PM

Recent Posts

When Your Calling Is Challenged
As hardships come, you have 1 of 3 options.
What Is Calling?
Defining this “super-spiritual” word
Cultivate Your Calling in Each Stage of Life
Angie Ward discusses cultivating leadership amid ever-changing responsibilities.
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
How to know whether to leave or stay in your ministry context.

Follow us

FacebookTwitterRSS

free newsletters: