I've spent most of my life at war with my female body.
After a decade-long eating disorder left me with badly imbalanced hormones, I started to experience politically incorrect cycles — you know, the ones with excruciating periods and rocky mood swings that actually do impact professional and personal life. After months of unrelenting pain, I learned to resent my inconsistency, my messy body, and my messier emotions.
Although this battle with my body defined my existence, I had no idea how to connect it with my faith. After all, despite spending years searching for Christian teachings that affirmed female embodiment, I had found little more than silence.
Sometimes we talked about honoring the body in church, but what about the blood and cramps that forced me to miss a day or two of work each month? And how was I supposed to engage faithfully with the fluctuations that left me hyper-sensitive one day and irritable the next? I was left wondering whether my painful, ever-changing flesh truly was “Eve’s curse”.
One day, my horrible cramps left my lying on the floor of someone else’s bathroom, too weak to even drive home. I was responsible for coordinating a huge church retreat the next day, but once again, my female body was preventing me from doing my job.
The vision for CycleWise came to me while writhing in pain on a dirty bathroom floor.
I’ve never had a politically-correct period — you know, the kind that comes and goes silently and painlessly, leaving your professional and personal life unscathed. In fact, my period was quite the opposite, which explains why I found myself lying yet again on someone else’s bathroom floor, rocking back and forth and trying not to cry from the pain. The bathrooms had changed over the years, but the pain remained the same — the kind of agony that the typical painkillers couldn’t even touch.
However, although my monthly detour into misery and my confusing hormonal fluctuations shaped my reality as a woman, I had no tools for navigating these challenging experiences as a Christian.
Sometimes we talked about honoring the body in church, but what about the blood and cramps that forced me to miss a day or two of work each month? And how was I supposed to engage faithfully with the fluctuations that made me hyper-sensitive one day and irritable the next? I was left wondering whether my painful, ever-changing flesh truly was “Eve’s curse”.
Plus, I was a theology student. I knew how the female body had often been viewed throughout church history: as an occasion for sin, as a symbol of fallenness. In my fiercer moments, I questioned my place in a religious tradition that seemed to either scorn or ignore the reality of female embodiment. But more often than not, I couldn’t help but agree with this low view of my flesh.
However, as I lay on that dirty floor, hating my body, I heard God whisper something profound in my ear:
"THERE IS POWERFUL PURPOSE IN YOUR CYCLE. I MADE YOU THIS WAY FOR A REASON."
Since that day, God has been healing my relationship with my body in profound ways. As that process continues, I’ve come to see that my female form is not only NOT defective, but is in fact a vital component of the holy function for which God created me. To either deny or ignore the fact of my female embodiment is to deny or ignore the Creator’s intention for my life.
Thus, I feel a strong vocational pull to help reclaim the body in Christian spirituality, particularly in the lives of women. This goal has perhaps never been more important, as our culture objectifies and debases the female body as a marketing tactic at every turn. If Jesus was so righteously angry at the way his Father’s house had been transformed into a marketplace thousands of years ago, what is he feeling as he watches our bodies — the physical temples of the Holy Spirit on earth — be exploited today as objects for financial gain?
CycleWise, therefore, is the outpouring of my desire to proclaim the goodness of the human body — something the Church has long defended in theology but denied in practice. By viewing our brilliant bodies as a source of natural revelation, we discover the image of God woven throughout every inch of our female embodiment.
A Bit More About Me:
FERTILITY AWARENESS EDUCATOR
In the last four years, I’ve studied the inner dynamics of the menstrual cycle with leading experts all around the world, and I’m certifying as a fertility awareness educator through FEMM Health.
MASTER'S IN THEOLOGY
I received my BA from Wheaton College, have studied extensively at the Theology of the Body Institute, and am currently pursuing a Master’s in Theology from Wheaton College, where I research views on women throughout Scripture and church history.
connect with me!
Lastly, I love to connect with other Christian women who are hungry for a vision of godly femininity that surpasses the restrictive rules and roles we know so well. If that’s you, please don’t hesitate to reach out!
A bit more about me...
In the last four years, I’ve studied the inner dynamics of the menstrual cycle with leading experts all around the world, and I’m certifying as a fertility awareness educator through FEMM Health.
I received my BA from Wheaton College, have studied extensively at the Theology of the Body Institute, and am currently pursuing a Master’s in Historical Theology from Wheaton College, where I research views on women throughout Scripture and church history.
Lastly, I love to connect with other Christian women who are hungry for a vision of godly femininity that surpasses the restrictive rules and roles we know so well. If that’s you, please don’t hesitate to reach out!
Curious how tuning into the sacred rhythm of your embodiment can transform your life?
LET'S
Connect
Inspiration for women who are hungry to learn more about cycle awareness and embodied Christian living.
