Does grace cover PMS?

[Esaias]

Just wondering...

[Evang.Benincasa]

[Esaias]

Its actually kind of a serious question, regarding sanctification... believe it or not.

[Evang.Benincasa]

Originally Posted by Esaias

Its actually kind of a serious question, regarding sanctification... believe it or not.

You are gonna have to do some explaining my brother.

[votivesoul]

No. No amount of hormonal imbalance already programmed into the biological function of the female body by God Himself is justification for a woman to act ungodly in demeanor or attitude toward anyone. He knows what happens to a woman's body every month, and knows how to curb it from getting out of hand.

We get sick. We become injured. We suffer in the flesh. There can be any number of things happening in our bodies or minds that perturb us and cause us emotional turmoil or upheaval, THAT ARE OUT OF OUR CONTROL.

But there aren't any conditions in the Word of God placed upon us to exempt us from obedience. We are to be tender-hearted and kind toward one another, forbearing and forgiving one another, just as God for Christ's sake has forgiven us.

On a personal note, my wife used to have terrible, TERRIBLE PMS troubles just before her menses. Life sucked at least once a month. Our marriage suffered horribly. We later discovered that her sugar addiction was the cause of much of the problems.

Ever since she broke free from her addiction, her cycles normalized and her PMS literally disappeared.

If a woman can't seem to control herself during a pre-menstrual episode, I firmly suggest she, instead of claiming she can't help it and act however she pleases, when the episode passes, she sincerely pray and seek God's face and find out whatever it takes to not be ill-tempered whenever her menses is about to be upon her.

If nothing else, take some St. John's Wort or Valerian Root Tea. Raspberry Leaf Tea also may do wonders.

[Esaias]

A Christian woman for about a week every month becomes THE most disagreeable, rude, obnoxious woman in town. She snaps at people, she acts like a total pit bull. And its obviously due to hormonal issues and effects, aka PMS.

So... does grace overlook those incidents of her mistreating people? Is it truly a medical issue?

This kind of ties in with JD's thread.

Can a person really be sanctified as she (or he) snaps and snarls at people? At least in the case of PMS one can say there is a physical cause of extreme stress and short temperedness, etc.

But where does God draw the line between an "oopsie", and backsliding?

[Esaias]

BTW, this is NOT about my wife. This is theoretical.

Just want to make that clear.

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by votivesoul

No. No amount of hormonal imbalance already programmed into the biological function of the female body by God Himself is justification for a woman to act ungodly in demeanor or attitude toward anyone. He knows what happens to a woman's body every month, and knows how to curb it from getting out of hand.

We get sick. We become injured. We suffer in the flesh. There can be any number of things happening in our bodies or minds that perturb us and cause us emotional turmoil or upheaval.

But there aren't any conditions in the Word of God placed upon us to exempt us from obedience. We are to be tender-hearted and kind toward one another, forbearing and forgiving one another, just as God for Christ's sake has forgiven us.

On a personal note, my wife used to have terrible, TERRIBLE PMS troubles just before her menses. Life sucked at least once a month. Our marriage suffered horribly. We later discovered that her sugar addiction was the cause of much of the problems.

Ever since she broke free from her addiction, her cycles normalized and her PMS literally disappeared.

If a woman can't seem to control herself during a pre-menstrual episode, I firmly suggest she, instead of claiming she can't help it and act however she pleases, when the episode passes, she sincerely pray and seek God's face and find out whatever it takes to not be ill-tempered whenever her menses is about to be upon her.

If nothing else, take some St. John's Wort or Valerian Root Tea. Raspberry Leaf Tea also may do wonders.

The Law says she is to be separated during her menses. Thoughts?

[votivesoul]

Originally Posted by Esaias

The Law says she is to be separated during her menses. Thoughts?

True. And offer a sin offering and experience ritualized cleansing through mikvah.

I think the issue in the Levitical system wasn't about getting a woman out of the camp because she was unbearably hormonal. PMS happens before the menses, and usually ends when the blood begins to flow, indicating that the PMS would likely be over before a woman had to separate herself.

I think the separation has to do with nephesh of the flesh being in the blood. The prohibition against eating meat with blood in it, or drinking blood, was given as a law for this very reason.

So, as a woman's blood leaves her body, the "life of her flesh" leaves her body. Being fruitful and multiplying was a major command and concern of God.

A married or even unmarried woman menstruating indicates she is not pregnant. She and her husband, if married, are not being fruitful.

The potentiality for the conception of another life inside of her comes to naught. The life of her flesh and uterine lining and everything else that leaves a woman's body during menses shows a failure to fulfill the command of being fruitful, hence the sin offering and expiatory cleansing.

My wife and I have three children, ages 5, 4, and 1.5. We expect to have more, if God wills it. In the last 6 years, my wife has only menstruated somewhere between half a dozen to ten times, compared to the 72 times she should have otherwise menstruated over the same amount of time (consider the 9 months of menstration free gestation, coupled with the many months of no postpartum menstruation). By God's grace, we are being fruitful and multiplying. If we end up having eight or ten kids, the more the merrier!

The point is, the seed of the man and the egg of a woman are given to us by God for only one reason: to procreate. To not procreate (except where medically impossible) seems to me to be a denial of the biological purpose of the function of the respective human anatomy.

Now, not every act (ahem!) causes conception, but the potential is there. And in the OT, when the potential is not used in the allotted time-frame, it may, from God's point of view, have constituted a failure on the part of the married couple to take advantage of the pleasures of congenital consummation.

A woman therefore was separated as a shaming device. In ancient Israeli culture, pregnancy and progeny were the greatest blessing God could bestow upon a woman. Every menses was merely an indication to a woman that she didn't receive this greatest blessing that month.

Make sense?

[Esaias]

Interesting.

I've wondered if PMS is a modern phenomenon.