Faith & Resilience in Perimenopause

For most of my life, I thought my biggest struggles were with weight. The yo-yo-ing, the sizes going up and down, the guilty twinge of vanity when I didn’t like how my body looked. And yes, that’s real — and I know many of you feel it too.

But even then, I was aware that weight wasn’t the whole story. I knew my body was deeply affected by food intolerances. When I ate clean, my body was happy and naturally slimmer. In fact, during my years in the UK — cooking for myself, eating ethnic food, traveling, and living more simply — I dropped about 40 pounds without even trying. My inflammation went down, and my body responded.

So when parasites and autoimmune shifts stripped me down to a handful of foods, it wasn’t just about my body changing shape. It was about losing the very thing that anchored me. I’ve always been a foodie. Back in the UK, while waiting for my husband’s visa to be approved, I even wrote a cookbook. Friends would ask me for recipes, but the truth is, I never cooked from recipes. Everything was in my head. Creating food — ethnic flavors, nourishing meals, joyful kitchen experiments — was part of who I was.

And then one fall night in 2019, after days of sleepless nights and racing tachycardia, I landed in the ER. As I lay there with a sodium IV dripping into my arm, I had the overwhelming sense that it was time to let go of control. I remember praying:

“It is enough for me to be Your child. It is enough to be a wife and a mother. If I can never enjoy food again, I will still be Yours.”

That surrender was one of the hardest and most freeing things I’ve done — but not the first. Surrender has always been woven into my walk with God. Years earlier, I had “set free” the man I was dating, only to be married to him a year later. I surrendered my country when I became a missionary. Letting go, releasing my grip, has been an integral part of my spiritual life.

This ER moment wasn’t isolated — it was another step in a longer pattern of God reshaping my identity, inviting me to trust Him more deeply with each layer.

Faith as an Anchor in Perimenopause

Perimenopause shakes identity for so many women. The energy dips, the brain fog, the body changes — and suddenly the version of yourself you always relied on feels out of reach. For me, the hardest identity loss wasn’t about my body or my weight. It was about food, creativity, and connection. For you, it might be work, fitness, or even your role in your family.

But here’s the truth: when those identities start to shake, there is an anchor deeper still. My faith became the ground under my feet when everything else was stripped away.

Resilience Looks Different Here

Resilience in perimenopause doesn’t always look like pushing through. Sometimes it looks like surrender. Like saying, “God, if this season strips me down to nothing but You, that will be enough.”

And ironically, it’s in that surrender that strength begins to rebuild. Identity becomes less about what we do or produce and more about who we are — beloved daughters of God, held in His hands even when our bodies feel fragile.

Perimenopause will test your resilience. Autoimmunity will test your identity. But both can also become invitations: to anchor yourself more deeply, to let go of what can’t be controlled, and to remember that you are more than your symptoms, more than your body, more than your performance.

Your identity is secure.

Your resilience can grow.

And your faith — whatever storms it has already carried you through — can carry you through this too.

Faith, Resilience & Identity in Perimenopause: Finding Your Anchor When Everything Shifts

Faith as an Anchor in Perimenopause

Resilience Looks Different Here

They are like trees planted by streams of water,

which yield their fruit in its season,

and their leaves do not wither.

In all that they do, they prosper.

Psalm 1:3 (NRSV)