And God Laughs…
My husband and I have been using NFP for 26 years. We’ve been parents for 22 years. If there’s one thing that I’ve become a firm believer of in these past two decades, it’s that God laughs and has a sense of humor.
“Does God have a sense of humor? He must have if He created us.” – Jackie Gleason
Now I know that my upbringing in the faith has influenced my image of God, not to mention my strong German roots. I was raised to believe that faith was all serious all the time; there wasn’t much time for play. Humor was something confined to the immature, or in my household, the Irish. Hard work, self-discipline, and order were the keys to a faith-filled life. There was a strict proper and improper way to live out the faith. Did I mention my strong German roots?
Ordered Life
But our Lord has a funny way of helping me come to better understand the joy of living the Christian life. Oh, those blissful BC days (before children); of going to church and actually being able to focus on the Mass, of sleeping through the night, of not stepping on Legos. The German in me enjoyed that very ordered life. It was tidy, planned, and organized.
But God had other ideas for me. Over the years God has entrusted my husband and me with four children. After our oldest daughter was born, I can just imagine God sitting back and watching the show. I recall my husband and I, young 20 somethings, coming home from the hospital with our newborn babe in arms, and saying to each other, “They let us leave the hospital with this baby?!? What were they thinking? Where’s the manual? How do we know what to do??” And God laughed.
Stretching
In time, more children came. And with them came more unpredictability, messiness, and random bodily fluids. In a word, chaos. Neat schedules, clean floors, and coiffed hair were distant memories. I would count it a triumph if my family was just fed and alive at day’s end. Uninterrupted showers were a luxury. But God was using this pandemonium to stretch me, to expand my heart, to grow in sacrificial ways. In short, He was gently, and maybe not so gently, steering me away from those misguided BC days, from thinking that I can control my world, from thinking that I could become, well, my own god, if only I checked all the boxes, and my sock drawer was impeccably organized.
Family life, living out the gift of NFP, has a way of stretching us. It helps us realize that we’re really not in control, are we? Can we guarantee that one of the kids won’t wake up sick on that first night in phase three? Is it possible to make our bodies ovulate on a certain day? Can we keep our youngest from using our NFP charts as a coloring book? No. No, we can’t. And we shouldn’t either. It’s not how God designed things to be, and it’s not healthy for us either.
Frustration
I can recall a time when my children were preschool age, and I as a young mother had idyllic visions in my head of my family coming together in prayer, looking much like a Norman Rockwell painting. I’ve always had an affinity towards praying the Liturgy of the Hours, and so I, clinging to my German roots and my naivety, insisted that our family pray evening prayer together after dinner. Well, as one with any experience around 4-year-olds could imagine, things went downhill fast while my frustration shot through the roof. Shockingly, I was surprised that my daughter wasn’t sitting still and repeating prayers dutifully after me. And God (as well as my husband, though silently) laughed.
It was a few frustrating weeks later when I read a line from one of my favorite Catholic women authors, Danielle Bean. “The life of a mother with young children is not a contemplative one.” Talk about eyes opened. It’s a line that still resonates with me to this day.
Lesson Learned
Lessons such as these have been learned throughout all our Judeo-Christian history. In Genesis we read of Abraham’s incredulous response when God tells him that he and Sarah, his wife, are going to become parents – at a youthful 100 and 90 years old. Well, we know how that story ends, and irony of ironies, they name their son Isaac, meaning, “one who laughs”.
There is certainly a place and time for hard work, self-discipline, and order, in using NFP and in family life in general. These are all good things, and we ought to strive for these virtues, all while keeping in mind that for these ideals to be truly good they need to be held in tantum – in balance – with other virtues; virtues such as joy, sacrifice, and surrender. We need to approach God as a child approaches a loving father, completely trusting and handing over all aspects of our lives to Him; our marriage, our fertility, our family. As St. Therese of Lisieux writes in Story of a Soul, “I’m not relying on my own merits, as I have none, but I put my hope in Him who is goodness and holiness Himself.”
Funny Side of Life
In the end, I find kinship in the thoughts of another Catholic German, Pope Benedict XVI, when he said in a 2006 TV interview,
“I’m not a man who constantly thinks up jokes. But I think it’s very important to be able to see the funny side of life and its joyful dimension and not to take everything too tragically. I’d also say it’s necessary for my ministry. A writer once said that angels can fly because they don’t take themselves too seriously. Maybe we could also fly a bit if we didn’t think we were so important.”
And so, God laughs. And I can laugh right alongside Him.
Written by Susan Hoefer. Susan has been married for 25 years and is the mother of four children. She has been a CCL teacher with her husband for many years. She has been working in the Diocese of Lafeyette-in-Indiana for over 15 years, promoting natural family planning, chastity, and pro-life causes, assisting couples preparing for marriage, and empowering parents to live out their God-given role as primary educators of their children in the faith. When she’s not working for the diocese, Susan uses her gift of gab, love of music, and her sense of hospitality to help those around her come to personally know and love Jesus.
We are very excited to announce that we have a new Teacher Training Session starting soon. We are open to receiving applications from students and promoters who are interested in teaching NFP to other couples. Also, we have a new opportunity for individuals to teach NFP as a paid FSI Instructor. Find out more at www.ccli.org/teach