"What NFP Isn't"

As always, Jenny of, "Mama Needs Coffee" has an incredible way with words. She was recently a guest blogger on Camp Patton, contemplating the ways in which we frequently misunderstand Natural Family Planning.

It is a wonderful piece -- intelligent, articulate, funny, thought-provoking all in one.

The point is, with NFP a couple is confronted with reality. It isn’t masked by a thin sheath of plastic or suppressed by a precise blend of synthetic hormones. It’s right there, staring them in the face once each month in the form of undeniable signs screaming out: “Hey, you’re fertile! If you have sex right now, you might make another person … isn’t that wild?”

Contraception denies the reality of sex. And it isn’t that it must lead to new life each and every time, but that it is ultimately designed to do so. And not necessarily at our beckoning.

NFP says to nature – and to God – “We bow our heads before this great mystery, and we choose either abstinence or possible parenthood.”

Contraception throws a paper bag over the mystery, believing that what you can’t see can’t hurt you. Except the truth is still there. And sometimes, paper bags tear.

You can read the rest of Jenny's thoughts on the topic here.