(My male readers may want to pass this one by. Then again, if you have women in your life, you might find this helpful.)

Between Sunday School and church, our small choir would meet in a downstairs hallway to run through the song we’d practiced the week before. As my friend, Christy (not her real name), came in, I handed her a songbook.

Christy took the book, threw it across the room onto a table, and kept walking.

I was stunned. So, apparently, were the others waiting in the corridor. Most were aware of her physical issues, and one asked, “Is Christy on her period this week?”

I thought, “How embarrassing that the whole church knows when it’s ‘that time of month.'”

Granted, Christy had more severe problems than most. She ended up having a hysterectomy in her thirties.

Though most of us don’t have that level of discomfort, I don’t know anyone who just breezes through their menstrual cycle. There’s always some level of physical discomfort, inconvenience, and emotional fluctuations that can vary month to month and year to year. Much worse has been done due to hormones than throwing a book.

And “that time of month” isn’t the only time hormones fluctuate to almost unbearable levels. They can run askew at other times. Pregnancy, the post-partum era, and menopause are also rough hormonal spots for women, intensified by interrupted sleep and physical discomfort. The years leading up to menopause (called perimenopause) were much harder for me, resulting in anemia, among other issues..

I always felt that my family and friends didn’t deserve for me to blow up or snap at them. I observed that the passage about the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5 doesn’t have an exception clause for hormones.

Still—I had some days when I prayed, “God, this is impossible. How am I supposed to be nice to people when my hormones are raging?” If walking in the Spirit was hard enough on a normal day, how could I do so with all these other factors working against me?

I don’t want to heap guilt on you on top of everything else. But I do want to encourage you to seek “grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:15-16).

From my limited experience, here are some things that might help. (I am not a doctor or counselor and make no medical or mental health claims.)

1. See your doctor. Don’t feel, “This is just a normal part of womanhood. I should be able to buck up and carry on.” And don’t let your doctor stop there, either. Though hormones are part of being a woman, “normal” varies from person to person. Especially if you feel like either your physical symptoms or emotions are extreme, seek help. There are a variety of things that can aid you both physically and mentally.

2. Establish good health habits. We’re tempted to eat junk when we’re not feeling well. An occasional treat is fine, but taking in good nutrition, exercising, getting enough sleep all throughout the month will help even the worst days.

3. Ask for grace. I used to let my husband know that time of month was coming, and, though I was trying hard to reign myself in, I might be a little more emotional or irritable than usual. He was always very understanding and gracious.

I once listened to a cassette tape (that’s how long ago it was) from Wayne Van Gelderen, Jr., in which he told about his mom having a hard time during menopause. His father asked Wayne, as the oldest child, to be a special help for her. He remarked that years later, when he tried to tell his siblings about the difficulties their mom experienced then, they didn’t believe him. He had seen “behind the scenes,” but they had not.

4. Give yourself grace. Not an excuse, but grace. Sometimes we find ourselves irritable or emotional and don’t realize what’s going on until a couple of days later when our period comes. Then the light dawns. If you have a regular cycle, you can prepare yourself a little better mentally. It’s not always possible, but if you know when your worst days might be, try not to schedule major events then. It’s nice to curl up with a heating pad and a good book (or whatever is comforting to you) or bow out of social obligations those days if you can.

5. Maintain good spiritual habits. Putting on the spiritual armor of Ephesians 6, taking our thoughts captive, being filled with the Spirit, all might be harder at certain times of the month or seasons of life. But this is not a time to let our guard down. We need God’s help more than ever. We might shorten or vary our Bible reading and prayer time when we’re not feeling well, but we shouldn’t drop them. Quick prayers throughout the day call on God’s aid in our need: “Please help me not to feel so irritated, or at least not to lash out.”

6. Rely on God’s grace and strength all the more. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10: “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth has said, “Anything that makes you need God is a blessing.” We can’t always arrange our circumstances to accommodate how we feel. In fact, sometimes it seems like issues heap up at the worst time of the month. But cry out to your Father and lean on His help all the more, moment by moment.

7. Meditate on Scripture. Here are a few that helped me in addition to the ones mentioned:

• “God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control” (1 Timothy 1:7). Some translations say “a sound mind” rather than “self-control.”
• “In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soul” (Psalm 94:19, KJV).
• “When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, Then You knew my path” (Psalm 142:3, NKJV).
• “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you” (Isaiah 26:3).
• “God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8). Sometimes I would shorten this to make it easier to hang onto: “all grace, all sufficiency, all things, all times.”

I also clung to this stanza from “Just As I Am” by Charlotte Elliott:

Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind;
Sight, riches, healing of the mind;
Yes, all I need, in Thee to find,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come!

8. Take life moment by moment. If we wonder how we’re going to get through this week, or theses months after having a baby, or years before menopause, we’ll feel weighed down and helpless. But we just have to rely on God’s grace this moment. And then the next one.

Much more could be said on this subject. Here are a few good articles I found, especially the first one:

• Hormones and the God Who Holds Us Together
• Can a Christian Have Mental Illness?
• PMS: The Monthly Fight with the Flesh
• Can My Hormones Make Me Sin?

How about you? What helps you when hormones cause you trouble?

I want to emphasize again that if you feel your symptoms are more than you can handle, physically or mentally, see your doctor as soon as possible. There is help available.

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)