All Aboard!

I was thinking tonight again about my friends who struggle with NFP, and really even those who struggle with contraception. Abandoning my former, fornicating lifestyle was harder for me than switching to NFP. NFP gave me freedom. I had never had a good reason to say, "no" before. Contraception gave me something that I termed 'freedom' at the time, but I have come to know now that contraception gave me an excuse. With NFP there is no excuse and I like that.

So why then do people struggle with NFP if it is all about freedom? There are many reasons I can think of, but I want to address the two that I feel are most common and most important. I think the number one reason is because we want what we want. NFP is simply about self-denial. None of us really gets up in the morning and says, "Gee, what can I deny myself today?" Most of us want to give and receive, and that is not a bad thing. NFP really does allow for that, but the biggest hurdle is that the giving and receiving is not just on our terms. Whether a couple charts fertility primarily for religious reasons or just for health reasons, the cycle is what it is. That is how the design works, whether we agree with it or not. So whether a couple believes in asking God for guidance or is just looking to the chart, we have to cooperate with each other and an external "opinion." Abstinence becomes less easy when there is a committee involved.

But I think the bigger reason people struggle is what influenced the title of this post. Not everyone is on board. I find that that struggle applies to everyone; those trying to conceive, those trying to avoid, and especially to those contracepting. One of the reasons I became so anti-contraception is that it introduced a wild-card in an already complicated situation. I hear so many people wanting to use contraception because they think it takes out that pesky pregnancy variable. Well, it does and it doesn't. It freezes it, it tries to ignore it, it might even try to surgically extract it, but it is never really gone. Simply put, because sex makes babies everyone has to be on the same page regardless of the desired end.

That is where the struggle is universal. And personally I believe that NFP holds a special key. When are we, as a couple, supposed to be together? When does God want us together...or even when does "Mother Nature?" How does the design really work? I'll will say right up front I don't struggle with NFP in general. We have a lot of reasons, probably an important one is we are a little older. We have passed those peak years of an ultra-high sex drive. We have some very serious reasons not to have any more children. (You name it we are probably dealing with it: health, financial, age, children's needs.) But at the same time I don't really chart that strictly. Our chart is merely a tool. Our decisions are entirely based on both of us being on board, and in our case it is about being on board with God.

I didn't want to be done having babies, and my husband was sort of take it or leave it. But God gave us a resounding "No." I threw a temper tantrum like any petulant child can be towards her Father, but eventually I got aboard. I don't worry about my chart now. I do a lot more listening to God and to my husband. Now my needs are filled exactly where I am. My goal is to understand the design of sex, and to have a deeper appreciation for it. Sadly, I spent my contracepting (and fornicating) years making decisions about what I wanted and about what I thought my significant other wanted. But I spent very little time actually being honest about where I stood. And I spent even less time asking where I was supposed to be standing.

For my husband and me, NFP was a key to deeper understanding. But we had to choose to take that first step. NFP became very easy when we were all in the same boat.