What is the Point of NFP?
When Emily and I got engaged, we went to Macy’s to start a wedding registry. We were given a scanner-type gun to wander around the store. It made a really satisfying noise when you scanned something, and that item went straight onto your wedding registry. Caught up in the moment, we allowed ourselves to dream and put some really nice things on our registry. One of the things we registered for, on the recommendation of our parents, was some beautiful crystal glasses, including wine glasses and champagne flutes. We scanned them, they went beep, and we moved on, never really expecting that anyone would actually buy them for us-they were too expensive, a total luxury. Imagine our surprise when we received the entire set of crystal glassware from Emily’s generous relatives!
Natural Family Planning, as we see it, is kind of like registering for crystal. If we had listened to our instincts (too expensive, no one will buy it) and not put the crystal on our list, we would have been depriving our family of a chance for extreme, surprising generosity. When we don’t leave ourselves open to God’s will in our own lives, we do the same thing. God loves you. He wants to give you good things:
“What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:11–13)
What if he wants to bless you in a way that will change the lives of you and your entire community for the better? What if, instead of accepting that gift, or even rejecting it, you close yourself off to the entire possibility of the gift itself? What if that gift doesn’t look exactly the way you think it should? There have been times in our lives when we were SURE we were done having kids. If we would have taken that time to begin taking artificial birth control, would we still have ended up being blessed with the family that we have now? Certainly not.
We are good at NFP, despite what many might think looking at our seven children, because we don’t use it with a contraceptive mentality. We are open to God’s will in our lives. When we think God might be calling us to have another baby, we prayerfully discern that. One beautiful thing about NFP is that we often get an opportunity to discuss God’s possible plan for our lives, and often we feel God calling us to accept His generous gifts. We ask ourselves, sometimes monthly, how our lives would change with a new little one, or if we can afford another baby, and how it would impact the other kids. More often than not, we do not feel it is the right time for another baby and we are able to use NFP in a way that allows us to still be open to the possibility of another child, should God choose to use it.
After Elizabeth was born (our sixth), our family was very complete. We had a nice even number: everybody had a pal. Everyone fit around the table. Everyone fit in the Yukon XL. Emily had a job and, for the first time EVER, we were making a little extra money and putting some of it in savings. Lizzie was 3 now, and we were pretty sure it was time to move out of the “baby” stage of our lives and into whatever new opportunities God was preparing for us. We got rid of most of our baby stuff. One day, when I got home from a weekend away, we were having some ambiguous signs on our chart. The “safe” thing would have been to wait one more day and make sure everything was ironed out (if we had been following our NFP by-the-book, we would have). Since the marital embrace is to be both procreative and unitive, we took the small chance, and God smiled.
I literally tear up at the goodness that has entered our lives since the birth of Matthew. From the moment we told our other six children about his existence to today, eight months later, after church when he had everyone around him clapping in unison with him, his life has been pure joy. His pregnancy was more difficult than some of the others, but every single second of it we knew that God had a plan for this child. It was with this knowledge that we had the grace we needed to get through this difficult pregnancy, postpartum infections, and typical emotional hardship Emily goes through after each of her babies. That is what sacrificial love is. To lay down one’s life for the other, knowing God has us in His hands.
Matthew has been a gift to everyone who encounters him. He has a contagious smile, he loves baseball hats and beards (so is a big hit with the men’s group). His brothers and his sisters worship the ground he rolls around on. Before he was conceived, we didn’t realize how much our family needed him. We had no way of knowing how much extreme joy he would inspire. I had no idea how much of a consolation he would be to me in my own life. But that’s the entire point. We left ourselves open for God to bless us. And He did.
Some things got tougher, for sure. We needed the BIG van, suddenly. Emily didn’t feel like she could do the job she wanted to do at the church, while still being a full-time mommy with two little ones with her at home, and at work, so she came back home. This made our finances tighter. However, it made room for God to call someone else into ministry who wouldn’t have had the opportunity for the ‘Yes’ if it weren’t for our ‘No.’ And our ‘no’ to that job opened our hearts up completely to what we had been feeling God tugging us toward for years: homeschooling.
God takes care of the gifts that He gives. A friend of ours likes to say “it’s just more water in the soup pot.” The community has helped by loaning or giving us baby stuff (some of it had originally been ours, and it was so wonderful to hear all the memories that had been made from various families with these well-loved items). We have everything that we could ever need or hope for.
There are a ton of arguments in support of NFP. There are theological arguments, health arguments, even arguments in support of strong marriages. But for us, it just comes down to looking at our kids that we weren’t 100% ready for, and seeing the absolute beauty they have brought to this world. God wants to give us the most spectacular gifts. All we have to do is to be open to receiving them.
Please leave us a comment on how we can pray for you this week!
Originally published at https://thesundayfamily.com on July 22, 2019.
