Sunday, March 22, 2009

to use or not to use...

lately i have been reading what i think to be a very important book. its called open embrace and it's written by a young evangelical couple who decided to not use contraception.

many of you know that kirby and i came to this decision, also... we were really convinced that sex in marriage and having babies came hand in hand and we wanted to be totally open to God's plan for our family.

sometimes this is a hard thing to talk about with our friends, sometimes people feel awkward talking about it; it is a very personal issue, after all. but it's also an issue that has not really been faced by the modern protestant church... and i think it needs to be. that's why this book is so great.

it's awesome because it's written by a protestant couple. most of the material out there about openness to life in marriage and/or nfp (natural family planning) are from catholic resources, which can sometimes be unappealing for our protestant friends. so open embrace is awesome as it comes from a totally protestant perspective.

a few things that i learned about while reading this book that are important to share are 1) there is a difference between contraceptives and abortifacients. contraceptives stop the sperm from reaching the egg (condoms, diaphragms, spermicides) abortifacients impede the egg from implanting in the uterus... this can often be a fertilized egg (a growing baby), thus coining the term "abortifacient." the pill, the mini-pill, nuvaring, iud's and the morning after pill are all lumped in this category.

most christian's that are using an abortifacient don't even know that they are.

i know this is harsh subject matter... but let's embrace that. let's ask the hard questions and not ignore this issue. even if it doesn't lead to you a change in your marriage, at least you can know with confidence that you explored this with faith in the One who promises to open the door to us that seek Him.

this is short, simple, read... it's sweet and gentle and full of incredible ideas about faith and marriage and sex and family.

please go get it, read it, and pass it on. and let me know what you think!

5 comments:

  1. My biggest concern is messing with my hormones. I hate introducing unnecessary chemicals, or whatever the pill is, into my body. And I have the feeling I may already have had a miscarriage, but that was because of an MRI scan.

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  2. Can't find a place to comment on your profile. What exactly is so unbelievably hard about becoming a tea collector that you have been trying to do it without sucess for months and months? Go get a couple of bags of tea already, and cross that off of your list. I have some old nasty bags of tea in my cupboard. If it will help I guess I can ship them to you. mcgarryrick AT hotmail.com

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  3. I finally decide to start reading your blog again and instead of some innocent anecdote about the cuteness of Hero and Mary I get the beginnings of a lecture that is going to cause my inner dialogue to debate with itself for hours today, probably throughout all of my classes. greattttt.
    kwp

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  4. FYI the Torodes divorced some time ago and they now state that nfp can be harmful to a marriage. They asked their publisher to quit publishing the book.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/09/us/09beliefs.html?_r=0

    Bethany patchin also has her own blog

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