Confessions of a family planner

As a newlywed, I would smugly remark that we didn't plan on using NFP. But even then I was only able to half convince myself that this had anything to do with “generosity” or “trust in God.” Actually it had everything to do with the fact that abstinence fell somewhere just below charting on the bottom of the fun scale. The truth was, I hadn't thought much about the matter; I hadn't prayed to know God's will. It wasn't a matter of discerning a call to a large family, it was a matter of me being lazy. I then effectively silenced my conscience on the issue of responsible parenthood with various snippets of rhetoric I'd heard or read.

With time I've learned lessons and faced some hard facts. Choosing to make love whenever we feel like it isn't “leaving the planning of my family to God.” It's me making a choice that I know is likely to result in pregnancy. When my husband and I discern that inviting God to send us another child is the loving decision, that's the time for us to let things take their course and leave the results “up to God.” I realize that for some couples this is the situation for the duration of their marriage, but it's not so for me. There are other times in which I have to make the generous decision of self-sacrifice for the well-being of myself, my husband, and the children we already have. At times the decision to sacrifice through self-denial is the harder choice than just doing what I want to do.......and calling it “putting it in God's hands.”

I can't get around the fact that God won't just send me children. There's only one time in history that a Child was born without the involvement of a man and woman (and even then He asked the woman for her free consent.) The only ones who owe their human existence directly to God's intervention are Adam and Eve - everyone else got here through the free choice of other humans. When I was laying out my plans for dodging NFP, I was denying my personal responsibility for my actions. In nothing else did I hold God accountable for some deed of mine reaching its natural fulfillment. If I choose to make pregnancy possible, I am responsible for that choice and its consequences, bottom line. This means we've had to accept the fact that this choice carries the same moral and ethical ramifications as any other action and “plan” our family accordingly, trusting God to help us know His will and do it.