Addendum to NFP and Average Me

I'm not entirely clear on what my purpose in writing that post was - I think perhaps it was to get myself out there; to put myself in the conversation. I know this area (sexuality, ethics and human dignity) is my mission field, but for whatever reason I've been relatively quiet about it. I felt it was time to get on with it.

I chose the approach I did because I've been struck by the quantity of two opposing voices among NFP users. There are those who struggle (and I in no way wish to diminish the reality of their cross), and then there's the chorus of couples who probably also poop rainbows and write poetry about the wonders of NFP.

I find myself to be neither. I'm distinctly average: the person the textbook was written about, but I don't love NFP. I'd rather not have to use it ever at all. I'd rather God just give us the exact number of children that we can handle, as we can handle them, but that's not reality. I moderately dislike NFP. I despise [the idea of] contraception. I don't think I'm called to have 16 kids. That leaves NFP as the least worst option and, for me, a manageable if undesirable one. 

I wanted my voice to be somewhere in the mix between the rainbow-poopers and the people with very real burdens. I was hopeful that someone looking into NFP might read my post and see that for some of us it does "work." People need to hear this because our culture doesn't believe it. 


But me saying it works isn't me singing its high praises, or announcing that couples should use NFP [periodic abstinence] believing it's intrinsically good for marriages (eye-roll, head-shake).  For most of us, I think it's just a heck of a big step up from contraception.* ...and some struggle to believe that but they do it anyway. God bless them.

*For further reading please consider:


Love and Responsibility

Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body