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Trusting in God is hard. For me, at least. It can feel easier to trust in our own plans and desires for our lives, rather than in God's. While God's plans are better than ours, it doesn't mean they will fulfill all of our earthly desires.
Today, I want to address how we can grow in trust in God while avoiding pregnancy. Some people will say that trusting God and his plans for your family means always trying to conceive or trying to whatever.
While some couples may be called to try to achieve pregnancy for much of their reproductive lives, this is not what all couples are called to. All couples are called to grow in trust in God and to be open to life. Couples using Natural Family Planning are (in most cases) open to life. If couples are not using contraception or contraceptive behaviors (like withdrawal), are discerning in prayer their intention in using NFP, and are discerning with a spirit of generosity, they are open to life. They are open to God's plan for their family.
Since contraception became more effective and widely available, there is a societal expectation that we can precisely control when we have kids and how many kids we have. But having kids doesn't work like that! So much is out of our control. Infertility and perinatal loss are real, lived realities for many couples. With a greater understanding of women's cycles, we do understand a great deal about when women are and are not fertile, but that doesn't mean we can control the whole process. And oftentimes, our plans for our family don't look like God's plan for our family. That is why careful prayer and discernment of one's intention in using NFP (whether a couple is trying to avoid or achieve pregnancy in a given cycle) are so important. Sometimes God will foster a receptivity to having more children than a couple expected. Sometimes couples will get pregnant when they are trying to avoid pregnancy. Sometimes couples desire to have children or have more children and are unable to do so to infertility. Sometimes couples desire to have more children but cannot responsibly do so temporarily or permanently due to financial, physical, emotional, or other reasons.
It can be a great source of suffering to be called to avoid pregnancy when a couple desires more children. They may have dreamed of having a larger family. The desire for a child is good, but it is not always prudent to try to achieve pregnancy. I heard another NFP instructor say that we must first consider our responsibilities to the children we already have before considering the potential future children we could have. This can be a place where a couple is called to grow in trust in God and his plans for their lives. I used to listen to the Ask Fr. Josh podcast frequently. One thing that he said stuck with me. He said something along the lines of, God will give us all we need to become the saints that he is calling us to be. I mention this not to dismiss real, lived sufferings. It is not a bad thing to desire and long for good things. I have personally found it helpful when God says no to a good desire to remember that God will give me all that I need to go to Heaven and live with him for eternity.
Avoiding pregnancy in general is not easy. It can be difficult to abstain from intercourse during fertile times. Those ovulation hormones are strong! However, seasons of avoiding pregnancy can allow for growth in the integration of sexual desires and growth in chastity and self-mastery. I will leave you with this quote from Humanae Vitae which highlights the beauty of this growth in self-mastery. The whole document is worth a read (and a reread!), and it's really not that long.
"The right and lawful ordering of birth demands, first of all, that spouses fully recognize and value the true blessings of family life and that they acquire complete mastery over themselves and their emotions. For if with the aid of reason and of free will they are to control their natural drives, there can be no doubt at all of the need for self-denial. Only then will the expression of love, essential to married life, conform to right order. This is especially clear in the practice of periodic continence. Self-discipline of this kind is a shining witness to the chastity of husband and wife and, far from being a hindrance to their love of one another, transforms it by giving it a more truly human character" (Humanae Vitae 21).
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