Author:Kailee Lockette, M.Ed, LPC
As we age, we feel the effects of change differently. Changeability is part of life and hits us in both positive and negative ways. We often experience change with much ambivalence. We are thankful for the changing of a season and yet grieved that it is ending all at once. Change happens in segments that often feel as if it is sped up at times and slowed down in others. Often, as it was for me, change in our 20's consists of big external and circumstantial changes - graduating college, entering careers, completing masters programs, living single adult life, meeting and marrying spouses and beginning to start families. Even though my 30’s have been full of many external changes, the change that has been much more evident within myself has been the physical, mental, emotional, relational and spiritual shifts. The external changes in that decade served as a catalyst for this personal change. I would have to write a book to talk about all of the ways in which change has taken place within me but I wanted to focus on one specific area that many of the women around me have resonated with - hormones.
I am not going to begin to explain what exactly hormones do or how they work, because I honestly don’t have a very robust understanding of these complexities, especially since they are so unique to each of us. But I do know they affect us holistically, as does the rest of our physicality. Hormones can influence us in many ways - physically (metabolism, body changes, sleep), mentally (stress tolerance, focus), emotionally (mood alterations, emotion spikes/dips), relationally (social connectedness). God made us embodied - he intentionally designed us with a tangible physical body, a heart, mind and soul. He did this before the fall, as his original, GOOD design (Gen. 2:23). And yet, living in a post-FALL world, broken by sin, we experience all of the not-so-good effects of being physical creatures - embodied souls. Hormones, although designed for our flourishing, with unique jobs and roles in our functioning, are also flawed and broken. Hormones change with puberty, sexual intimacy, pregnancy, miscarriage, birth, nursing, post-partum, menopause, stress, food, the list could go on (Romans 8:18-23). They, like emotions, have a job and role in our well-being. Yet, we also see how often they misfire, overact, underact, etc. Experiencing postpartum changes (that have also brought back to mind the changes I felt as a teenager) has reminded me just how mutable I am. I am constantly changing, unlike the God who made me, who is immutable and never changing (Hebrews 13:8). I don’t know whether change was part of the original design in the garden, or if we will still change in the new heavens and the new earth, but I do know that we need a framework to understand how it fits into redemption. We live in between the Garden (Gen. 1, 2) and the New Jerusalem (Rev 21)…. but we aren’t left to deal with the effects of the fall on our own. Between those two events/realities lies redemption. Jesus came to redeem us not just from sin, but from suffering and the effects of a broken world on our lives (2 Corin. 4:16-17). Hormones are not outside of his work of redemption.
The effect of hormones that often stands out in the work I do as a counselor is in the emotions. Our emotions ebb and flow alongside the ever-changing hormones within us (as well as the ever-changing world around us). We experience surges in frustration, irritability, anger, sadness, impulsivity and the list could go on. Since having children, my hormones have shifted a lot and I have seen emotional changes therein that seem somewhat out of my control and “abnormal” to my usual emotional state. Upon experiencing these changes emotionally, I felt the “weakness” of my heart; the vulnerability of being a human. When most of the month I am able to “hold it together”, not react emotionally or become overly sensitive, these days of sensitivity remind me just how weak and needy I really am. I am able to emotionally connect with the Lord, and others, in ways that the rest of the month is harder to do. I am more able to grieve what I have been pushing down the previous weeks, share burdens that I have been carrying on my own (Matt. 11:28), express concerns and frustrations that build into anger and bitterness (Eph. 4:26-27). It was through this experience that I realized the Lord’s design is STILL being used for my good, even in its broken state (Romans 8:28).
I had long been aware that emotions were part of his design and, in their broken state, used as a tool in his hand to connect me to others and to HIM. Yet I had not considered that hormones, chemicals within my body, were being used for the same things. The Lord is in the business of redeeming, restoring and renewing us and he is using every broken thing to do that work. So when our hormones rage and cause us to think, feel, and emote drastically, let it be an invitation, a reminder, to attune with the Lord, others and ourselves. May this lead us to identify what we need to pay attention to and not ignore. Do we need... More physical rest? More (or less) of a certain type of food? More conversation with our community? More forgiveness and repentance? More time to be alone and pray? Less things on the calendar? More journaling or sharing in vulnerability? Less time on social media? Weaknesses are meant to remind us of our dependence, our need for help, our mutability (2 Corin. 12:9-1 0). We haven’t arrived, we are still a work in progress, we are still in need of CHANGE. Yes, we can and should lament (grieve toward and with the Lord) the way these hormones represent the brokenness of our body and world, but let’s not stop there - wallowing in our condition. The Lord didn’t leave us to fend for ourselves against sin and suffering - He sent His son to redeem it (Hebrews 4:14-16). So let’s allow Him to use these changes around AND within us as an invitation to rest and be remade (2. Corinthians 3:17-18) - body, soul, mind, heart - until the day we are made NEW - perfect and complete (Rev. 21:4).