This feels like a post that needs a TMI disclaimer right from the get go, meaning, if you’re going to read any further, then prepare to be exposed to thoughts and information that you may or may not be better off not knowing. That being said, don’t get your hopes up or start to thinking that I’m about to say anything incredibly new or enlightening. We’ve been saying this for years.

Women have this thing where we are influenced by the hormones that produce our monthly cycles. God created our bodies to go through the same four phases of this cycle month after month, year after year, for as long as he wills. This is God’s design for us, and at the same time, it can be exhausting to have to be so mindful and managing of yourself, as is needed in phases prolonged.

I’ve described it at times as your skin being gone. Over the course of 10-12 days, there is this slow regression of the outer body layer that covers your most sensitive nerves. Your heart is exposed, your nerves, your joints, everything that is normally padded and covered is now out in the open. Anything you’ve been dealing with, not dealing with, it’s all right there saying, “Ok, deal with me.”

Every month we have to do this, to be the most self-controlled in our most weakened state. Prior to this, if your toes get stepped on, if something rubs you the wrong way, you have that wonderful protective layer of the body there to mitigate pain and damage. “It happens”, you say, “We’re human”, as we surely are. It really didn’t bother you that much, because in the moment, it wasn’t hurtful.

And so it’s going to get brought up. Or maybe it won’t. You start to learn which things are worth saying and which things aren’t going to get you anywhere but distanced. Sometimes you learn how to bring things up in a kinder, less offensive way. Sometimes things simply don’t bother you like they used to because the true and repeated dealing with things fosters love and affection.