An old challenge for a new generation...

When previously asked about our plans for a family, Chris and I always answered that we want to be finished with school, Chris in a job and feeling fairly stable before bringing children into our lives.  Far from being questioned we were always praised for the maturity of this decision and then told deplorable tales of parents who didn't make such a 'good' decision and the hardships they were now facing, until last summer that is. 

Over the summer we listened to a conference hosted by Vision Forum that challenged our views on the timing and control of child bearing.  This included questions we had never asked, or been asked, and points about birth control and parenting we have never encountered before.  It challenged the idea that we should be in control of how many children our marriage brings in to the world, it exposed the motivation behind such control, it pointed out that the church's stance on birth control of any kind has been historically negative and the Catholic church still (mostly) holds that negative stance, but mostly it quoted verse after verse and applied other commonly accepted Biblical principles to this touchy subject.

I was crushed at the prospect that we might have been disobeying the Lord for the last four years and we were both convicted that we had never laid this question before the Lord.  Out of all the things we had asked Him and all the decisions we had laid at His feet, we had never even considered asking Him when we should have children or how many we should have.  We followed the culture in the assumption that we should be in control of that and the 'responsible' choice was to prevent children until we were 'ready'.  Hearing the same thing from the church we never questioned this decision.  Looking at it point blank we realized how foolish that was and committed the next five months to prayer, study of God's word and seek counsel from family and mentors in our lives.

Our study revealed that children are a blessing and inheritance from the Lord.  Over and over again you will hear this in scripture, not only that but we see example after example of families longing for children and rejoicing when they are entrusted with them.  Looking through church history we consistently see theologians denouncing the prevention of children by any means, only until the late 50's did this stance begin to change.  From Luther to Calvin to St. Augustine to church father's I previously didn't know about, the stance was that children are a blessing and it was a grave crime against the Lord, the unborn, the church and your wife to try to prevent them.  We saw how other principles of scripture could/should apply to this area of our life but we just hadn't considered them previously.  The main one that hit me was the exhortation to trust the Lord.  We are told from the pulpit to trust the Lord with our calling, who our future spouse will be, with our finances, to provide a job, but never with how many children we are to have.  We also became sadly aware of how many Birth Control pills and methods actually work as abortifacients, causing the early abortion of of conceived babies before they can implant into the uterus.  Finally, this study through scripture revealed that families are one of the ways God increases His kingdom.  Yes, people converted to Christianity from outside the church are precious and valuable members, but Christians who were raised in a Christian home have such a huge advantage!  We can tackle questions that possibly our parents weren't able to get to, we have great examples to learn from for all areas of our life, and we can skip some struggles our parents had to endure and learn from because they told us about those.

We received conflicting counsel from the people we sought out.  Some encouraged us to completely trust the Lord with this area of our lives, some said we should keep doing exactly what we were, and several counseled us to follow a 'middle' path of not using the pill but possibly using other methods of control.

At the end of this time we came together with the conclusion that we definitely should not have as much control over this area as we have.  Chris was especially convicted by the realization that this is not a new question, that church fathers discussed and counseled on this throughout church history and ultimately who are we to stand and argue with them?  Not saying the church fathers were perfect and got everything right, but when facing such a united front you really need to have a good counterargument, and we really didn't find one.  I was especially convicted by the thought that I might be denying the Lord in a way He might want to use me, that I was saying 'no' to potential blessings He might want to entrust us with.  I was also convicted that I do my best to trust the Lord in every other area of my life and yet have been withholding this from Him.

So as of January 4th we stopped the pill!

That's as far as we have gotten however.  We aren't going cold turkey.  We have decided to use other forms of control for at least 6 months, partly to get my body healthy (I have had some minor health quirks while on the pill), partly because we have heard of lots of ladies who have suffered miscarriages after only being off the pill 3-4 months, but also because we aren't positive what the next step should be.  We are both convicted that we shouldn't have as much control as we have with the pill, but we aren't as united on how much control we should have.  So we are going to be praying some more over the next few months and hopefully we will be more united at that time.  If not, we will follow what Chris thinks best since, as the head of our family, he is ultimately responsible for our welfare and thus deserves authority to make that final call.

We are not sharing this decision to guilt anyone into making a similar one.  We are sharing because of the fact that no one had presented us with these questions or ideas before and we wish they had!  Since the softening of the church's stance (well the Protestant churches) the pulpit has gone silent on this issue and it makes me sad.  I do not think that what we are doing now is for everyone, but I do think that it should be a conscious, prayerful decision couples make, not just something we do because everyone else is doing it.  Yes it might seem strange, but isn't that to some degree what we are called to be as Christians?  Strangers in a foreign land?

One of the questions we are still grappling with is what to do about the stewardship question.  We are called to be good stewards of our means, but does this include controlling how many children we should have when we are concerned about providing for them?  So far our answer is no, children don't fit into the category of something we should steward in that sense... but it is still tempting to use that excuse!  We are scared of the prospect of having children while I am still in a PhD and Chris is still working on His Masters, please don't think we haven't thought about the implications and challenges that would pose!  But we are also confident that this is where the Lord is leading us, and where He has pointed the way in the past He has always provided so we are trusting Him to do the same here.