Life-Giving Blood by Michelle Bodle

“What did you think?” This question was posed to me by a young woman I am mentoring in ministry. After receiving The Book of Womanhood by Amy Davis Abdallah as a gift, she asked me to walk through the book and discuss it with her, as suggested in the introduction. 

            I inhaled deeply before replying that I thought Davis Abdallah was writing from a posture of privilege that she was completely unaware of – and that deeply troubled me.

            Davis Abdallah’s premise is that Christian women need a rite of passage accompanying the journey of getting to know themselves. Piloted at the former Nyack College where Davis Abdallah taught, Woman was a program that sought to develop a Christian right of passage for women focused on relationships with God, self, others, and creation. 

            While I do not doubt that such a format may be meaningful to women, especially young adults in college, I knew I would be dismayed as soon as I entered section two, relationship with self. I found the chapter titled “Body Parts and Life-Giving Red: Embracing Our Sexuality.” Here, Davis Abdallah spoke of menstrual cycles as a sign of the ability to bear life and the power of such a gift. 

            But what if menstruation is not a sign of life for a woman but rather a sign of something else entirely? The first time I remember receiving my period was as a freshman in high school. While I had sat through the mandatory education around menstruation in fifth grade, it was years of waiting until I finally “caught up” with all of my friends. Only from the beginning was it noticeable that something wasn’t right. Instead of having a flow for a week or less, which tapered, for two weeks I had an exceedingly heavy flow. And then nothing for six months, only to have a long and heavy period again. 

            This cycle led to multiple doctor visits and medical testing. From the end of high school, I knew that it would be difficult for me to become pregnant. From college, I had to make decisions around medications.

            I thought Davis Abdallah might pick up on the tensions that can come when menstruation is not a sign of promise and life when she began her chapter with the story of a young woman who underwent surgery at the age of eleven due to issues relating to her period. However, she seemed to equate the trauma that this Woman experienced to a lack of understanding of anatomy and sexuality and failed to mention the culture of the Church that would have impacted this woman as well. 

            For me, in this same time frame of health-related struggles and decisions, I was attending an evangelical church that preached that the reason God ordained marriage between a man and a woman was to have children. Imagine hearing this rationale as a teenager struggling with your own identity as one who would, at best, have trouble conceiving. Theologically, it deeply impacted me. If I couldn’t have children, would that mean I shouldn’t be married?

            It took me more than a decade to express the damage behind this theology – by which time I was a pastor. It wasn’t until I met a friend in seminary who had the same diagnosis as me and struggled with the same toxic theology that I was able to begin to put a voice to what is so damaging about solely connecting marriage with having children and menstruation with the phrase “life-giving.”

            This story came spilling out of me with my mentee, just as pieces of it have burst out over the years when I hear poor theology around sexuality. It has bubbled out of me when women find their way into my office to talk about diagnoses and struggles. While I’m sure Davis Abdallah’s writing about menstruation, cycles, and sexuality was liberating for some, for me, it missed the mark, once again reminding me of the weight of shame that comes when the Church communicates in a way that excludes some people’s reality. 

            What would it look like to talk with young women about the fact that their value does not lie in the ability to bear children? What could it look like to foster intergenerational friendships of women where we can be honest about struggles related to poor theology around menstruation? What freedom could women bring to the Church if they are sincere that we get our whole selves just as we are? What new chapter is just waiting to be written that sets aside a posture of privilege and instead creates space for people’s whole story to be told and their full reality honored?

BIO: Michelle Bodle has served for over a decade as a pastor in the United Methodist Church and spiritual director. She creates sacred spaces of holy listening through Abide in the Spirit, www.abideinthespirit.com