Why We Use NFP

By Ben and Rita Pehl, Sacred Heart, Terry

In the larger culture we live in, many people believe that conceiving a child (or not conceiving one) is completely in our control. Yet all of us have friends and family who have experienced the heartache of infertility, not to mention others who have experienced “surprise” pregnancies. Although we are still a young married couple, we would like to share with our fellow Catholics how Natural Family Planning (NFP) has helped us to grow in our love for each other and to find the peace of surrendering to God’s will.

We first learned and began practicing NFP because we wanted to follow the Church’s teaching on family planning and contraception. We also wanted to use a method that would actually be effective in spacing our children. NFP fits both criteria. (See side bars for more information.)

Over the past five years, we have discovered that we want to continue practicing NFP, not simply because it is moral and effective, but also because it has deepened our relationship with each other and with God. Each time we are intimate, we are able to give ourselves completely to each other, holding nothing back, not even our fertility. We feel strongly the graces of the sacrament of marriage, truly uniting us and helping us to remain strong even during the challenges of marriage. The times of abstinence, when postponing pregnancy, lead us to develop other ways to show our love to each other. Working together to record and interpret our fertility signs and to discern God’s plan for our family also helps us become better at communicating with each other.

Using NFP has also strengthened our relationship with God, particularly our trust in Him. When we got married, we were not ready to have a baby right away and followed the rules of NFP quite conservatively, mostly out of fear that we would have a child before we felt we were ready. Over time, God has opened our hearts to trust Him more. We have come to trust that NFP really works. More importantly, we have come to trust that even if the method fails (or more likely, if we fail the method), we can trust that whatever happens is God’s plan. God knows what is best for us, even if that means having a baby when we weren’t planning on it. The ability to trust God to plan our family has transferred into our ability to better trust God in other aspects of our life: our farm, finances, marriage, parenting, and relationships with others. While our trust in God is certainly not perfect, it has become stronger since practicing NFP.

We are grateful that NFP allows us to space our children and plan our family using a method that aligns with God’s plan for married love. There is a peace in doing God’s will, even when doing so is challenging. We want to encourage other couples to discern God’s will for their marriages. Give NFP a try!

What does the Church teach about NFP and artificial contraception?

“Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods, is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality. These methods respect the bodies of the spouses, encourage tenderness between them, and favor the education of an authentic freedom. In contrast, “every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible” is intrinsically evil.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2370)