Lent, NFP, and Such

I did not do a "what are you doing for Lent" post - probably because I'm still avoiding my blog (how long can this go on!?! Blargh!), and also because, I want Lent this year to be a bit quieter. I know you haven't noticed, but I'm sort of a loud-mouth and if I'm not careful, I get braggy and preachy. So I hope you all have found great things to enrich your Lent, and I'll assure you that I have too.

What with all the HHS mandate talk, contraception v. NFP is getting a lot of press, which is nice, I think. There was that article about making "NFP sexy" which I was happy to see. By the time Tom and I headed to pre-Cana classes, we'd already been learning Creighton for 6 months, so the brochure they gave us with outdated information that was clearly from the 1970s wasn't any sort of a blow to our confidence. However, we were the only couple in the class that asked educated questions in this section, and the woman next to me was shocked to discover that we were actually going to use it (which was weird, because she was definitely headed out of her child-bearing years, so you think she'd be less worried - it's not like she has 17 fertile years ahead). NFP could definitely use an update.

I think the biggest comforter in learning NFP was talking to the many couples who never used contraception, and have average-sized families. My godparents have three kids - never used any form of contraception, ever. It's just what God had in mind for them. We had dinner last night with a lovely older couple in our parish - they have four kids, never used any form of birth control. I think what most women aren't discovering until they get married (usually much later than is ideal for having kids) is that getting pregnant, the disease they've been protecting themselves against since they were teens, isn't a given for everyone. An acquaintance of mine waited to have her first child until she was 40, despite being married for 10+ years before that, because she was a career lawyer wanted the right house and everything else. She confessed after her child was born, "If I had known being a mom would be this much fun, I would have done it earlier - I would've planned to have more children!" This is tragic.

On another note, please pray for a great blogger, the Mom over at Shoved to Them, because her 7-year old daughter is having some serious health problems. It's Friday - please lift up your prayers today for her and her suffering child.