As origionally posted on Courtship Connection
Babies - How Soon After The Wedding?
There has been alot of discussion about the whole babies and birth control issue. I haven't done a whole lot of studying on it outside of reading my Bible, talking to my parents, and just watching other couples.
When Robert and I first met, we both wanted to wait a year or two before having kids. That didn't change even after we got engaged. We've both waited our whole lives to spend time with our spouse, and we wanted to be able to have plenty of time after married to be together just the two of us. I guess in a way, I thought we deserved that time to ourselves since we've avoided it for so long. Kind of a reward for not dating, you know. But we've both come a long way in the last few months. The more we think and pray about it, the more we realize that one of the main purposes for marriage IS to raise a family. If you don't want to raise a family, don't get married.
I'm not sure how much sense all of this will make; it's basically going to be just a whole lot of my observations thrown into an e-mail, but hopefully it'll at least give you some starting points as you think through everything. It's a BIG issue to think about because there are SOOOO many different opinions floating around in the world today. Everyone says something different, and each opinion has its pros and cons. I grew up in a big family. Well, we weren't always a big family. There were only 4 of us kids for a while. Mom and Dad didn't want to have any more and weren't planning to. But when we moved here to Missouri, we got involved in a wonderful church with people who were firm believers in full quiver families. That attitude rubbed off on my parents, and they started rethinking their views on birth control vs. letting God plan your family. I think it was around that time that Psalm 127 became our family scripture motto.
"Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows. For so, He gives His beloved sleep. Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord. The fruit of the womb is His reward. As arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth."
My parents haven't really said a whole lot to us kids about how it is better to let God plan your family, etc, etc. But actions speak louder than words ALWAYS! : ) I am so blessed to have grown up in a family where children truly ARE blessings. Even when times get hard and money is tight, and I KNOW things would be easier if there weren't so many of us kids, I've never heard my parents complain. They want the Lord to be the one who builds our house/family.
So, I've always wanted a houseful of kids, but I'd never really thought about WHEN I wanted to start having those kids. I assumed everyone waited a year or so after getting married. Like I said, I wanted some time with just my husband before throwing a baby into the mix and adding MORE changes to adjust to. I wanted time to go on dates and do all those "couple things" that I've always looked forward to. But the "problem" is that I don't know how to NOT get pregnant outside of good, old-fashioned abstinence. "The Pill" is not an option for me, and so many of the other things aren't as effective as people make them sound, and even natural family planning causes some controversy. It's like this: if babies are a heritage and reward from the Lord, and if we trust Him with every other area of our lives, why are we so hesitant to trust Him when it comes to planning our families? Robert is always reminding me, "God will not give us more than we can handle." In the beginning, we both decided we'd just practice abstinence at certain times to avoid pregnancy. . .my mom laughed when she heard that one. . . But the more we've thought about it, both separately and together, the more we realize that's probably not going to work either ; ) Robert picked up a book at a bookstore not too long ago. It was something like, "What I Wish My Mother Had Told Me Before I Got Married" (I'm not sure exactly). Anyway, he skimmed through it and came across a portion where the mom was asking her daughter, "So when are you planning on having a baby?" The girl was like, "Well, we thought we'd wait 4 or 5 years because we're not really ready to have a baby yet." (they wanted time to get used to the idea of having a baby and also time for just the two of them to do things together. A baby would have taken away their freedom.) After she said that, her mom said, "Well, if you're not ready to have kids, then you should wait and get married when you ARE ready to have kids."
That really set Robert and me to thinking. If we weren't ready to have a baby, then were we really ready for marriage? That's part of what God designed marriage for: the procreation of the human race. I watched a Hallmark movie the other day, and a lady made a very brief comment that goes right along with that: "A baby is a testament to the love that you and your husband share."
Babies aren't a hindrance to a relationship; they add to that relationship. I think it's just the North American culture that says babies take away a couple's freedom and hinder their relationship. Yes, they DO add extra stress (Sometimes. If you start to train them when they're first born, babies don't usually add stress), and they are certainly more responsibility, but with responsibility also comes growth, which is what a relationship is all about: growing.
Robert reminded me, "We're both ready for the idea of having a baby, so we need to just trust God that He'll give us what's best for us." It doesn't scare either one of us to think of adding a baby to our soon-to-be-family (because a husband and wife ARE a family even though the babies haven't come along yet), and unlike many other couples today, we aren't in a position where we "can't afford a baby" (but even that argument is a little silly because God always provides the means to care for the blessings He bestows on us). Our reasoning was simply that we wanted the freedom of being just a husband and wife in love and the time to get to know each other even better. But we have both wanted to be parents since we were really young. I remember Robert telling me, "I've always known I would be a father. I love kids, and I feel loved by kids." The same goes for me; I've always wanted to be a mom, and there is nothing that can compare to the love of an innocent child. Having grown up in a home where there was almost always a little baby, the thought of having my own baby doesn't scare me at all. I'm more nervous about getting married than I am about having a baby!!! Babies I can handle, but I've never had a husband to take care of before. . . But I'm not going to NOT get married simply because I'm worried about the responsibility and unknowns of having a husband. That's all part of what marriage is. Yes, you have the joys of being married to the most wonderful man on earth (actually, you are out of luck because I already have the most wonderful man on earth ; )!!!), but you also have the everyday stresses and responsibilities of being a wife to that man on the good days AND the bad. I've heard it's NOT an easy task.
The whole issue became very real for me about the middle of May when a friend of mine from college came to stay with us for the weekend. She is getting married this month and is, naturally for her, already on "The Pill" and carefully planning how to avoid getting pregnant. I knew she was on the pill, and I've known other people who were, but I've never actually talked to any of them or seen how it affects their attitude toward children. One night, before bed, she was digging in her bag, saying in a light-hearted-almost-joking tone, "I have to take my don't-have-kids-pills."
I cannot even explain what went through my heart when she said that in such a nonchalant way. It was like a knife went through my heart and a light came on in my brain, and I suddenly realized where I really stood on the issue.
There are so many girls out there who will do just about anything to keep from having a baby. God means to BLESS us with them, but we look at His blessing and say, "Nope, I don't want it yet." We think OUR way is better and that God doesn't truly know what is best for us. Just think of all those babies who AREN'T born simply because we humans have a wrong perception of children. God wanted us to populate the earth and raise Godly offspring who would go out into the world and raise more Godly offspring. He wanted to give a blessing that would be a physical sign to all who see us of the love between a husband and wife. If we deny life, we deny His blessing, and when we deny His blessing, in a sense, we deny Him. That may sound a little harsh, but why would we WANT to deny God's blessing? If your own earthly father chose to give you a gift, you wouldn't say, "No thanks, Dad. I can get something better for myself." That would be denying your father's ability to know what was best for you. I believe it's the same way in relation to God. He alone knows what is best for us. Sadly, many of us think that God knowing what is "best" for us means that He knows what hardships are going to build character in us, so He dumps all the stresses and hardships on us that He can think up. How untrue! We forget that our heavenly Father knows the desires of our hearts, and He DELIGHTS in fulfilling those desires. In the same Hallmark movie that I mentioned above ("Love Comes Softly") a girl and her new husband were moving west. They had just found the perfect spot to build their house and start a family when the husband was killed. As it turns out, she had just found out she was pregnant. Later on in the movie, she was talking to someone who said, "I'm glad you're going to have a little one to remember him by." In thinking about that, hard as it is to even think such an awful thought, I know that if something were to happen to my Robert, I would want a child to remember him by. Because the lady in the movie was right; babies ARE a testament to the love between a husband and wife.
OK, so that's a very somber note to end on! But that is a sampling of the thoughts I've wrestled with in the last few months. I want to add just one other thing: there are some women who can't get pregnant or have trouble conceiving for various reasons. I hear of more and more women who are having trouble, and they are often girls not much older than me. God brought me to a point a couple months ago where I broke down and prayed, "God, I would much rather have a honeymoon baby than not be able to have a baby at all." If you ARE able to have a baby, thank God for it, trust Him, and enjoy all of the blessings He bestows on you and your husband : )
I'm still in the learning process too, and I don't by any means have everything all figured out, and I do get a little scared to think of actually having my own baby because I still feel so young that it doesn't seem possible I could be a mom! But the more Robert and I talk about babies and finding a house before we have a baby, the more I'm OK with it and even looking forward to it. Plus, a baby around the house during the day gives you another human to relate to while your husband is away at work : )
I would also like to pose the question: why do we say that we're willing to trust God to provide the person we're supposed to marry (returning to the basic principle behind courtship), yet we are so unwilling to simply trust Him when it comes to having children?
Around the breakfast table, my family has been talking about experiencing God. My dad uses his relationship with my mom as an example: NO ONE can tell my dad that he doesn't have a relationship with my mom. He has experienced her and knows her (just as we as Christians are supposed to experience God.). This morning he laid his hand on my baby brother's head and said, "He is proof that your mother and I have a relationship."
That is SO true. If you have no children, where is the physical proof that a living and active relationship exists between a man and wife? Children are not a burden unless your attitude makes them one. They are the fruit that comes from having a relationship with your spouse. Yes, marriage is for companionship, but there is SO much more to it than just that. Those of us who aren't married yet, have only a VERY limited understanding of all that marriage encompasses. I have a hunch that there's a whole lot more to it than I can even imagine. Having children is one of the blessings that comes from a marriage.
Granted, there are some couples who cannot have children, but I don't believe a couple should enter into marriage determined to never have children. If a couple is worried about a child being unwanted and hence unloved, then they need to change their attitude toward children. Abstinence is the ONLY method that is 100% proven to work. What if the couple "accidentally" gets pregnant? Will they raise the child to know that it wasn't wanted or planned? I would hope not. I would hope that they would change their thinking and choose to want the child. God can surprise us far beyond our wildest imaginations when we change our attitudes.
The highest calling a woman has is to be a wife and mother. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. Whether we believe it or not, mothers have a greater influence on the world that people are willing to admit. I do not judge any woman who chooses to never marry or never have children, but I honestly don't understand why you wouldn't want to give life to a child and raise that child up to reach the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We Christians look at the world today and wonder why it is going downhill so fast. I would challenge you to look around and see how many Christian couples are trying to avoid getting pregnant. In the very beginning, God commanded us to be fruitful and multiply. This was not just a casual command because He wanted lots of humans running around the globe. God was serious. Dead serious. He wanted a world that was full of people who loved Him and were reaching out to those who didn't know Him yet. How can we go out into ALL the world and preach the Gospel if we don't have children? We can't. Eventually, we will die, and if we don't have any children to come after us and pick up the work where we left off, the Great Commission can never be fulfilled.
From the Body of Knowledge
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