29- Our Family Planning

 We needed to consider birth control.

I mean, that’s what responsible people do, right?

Dan would be turning 30 four days before the wedding, and I had just turned 33. I had been on birth control pills starting in my fourth year of college, and afterward. We were not sure if I would have trouble getting pregnant.

Once again, I am not a dreamer or much of a planner. I had not thought about how many children I wanted or how many boys and how many girls. I hadn’t thought of boys’ names and girls’ names. In fact, eight years of teaching school had filled my maternal need very nicely. I wasn’t not wanting children, I just didn’t have any thoughts on it. Dan did not have a strong opinion either.

            What we realized was that we both wanted to trust God with our family planning and that is what we did.

We began to actively put our family planning in the hands of the Lord praying every day, several times a day during the six weeks before our wedding—

LORD, YOU PLAN OUR FAMILY!      

SPOILER: God took us seriously. I became pregnant with Timmy on the third day of the honeymoon, then when Timmy was only five months old, I became pregnant with Steve. When Steve was twelve months old, I became pregnant with Mark, and when Mark was eighteen months old I became pregnant with Danny. We did panic and try some birth control interventions, but they were blessedly ineffective. We had given our family planning to God and He kept hold of it.

When we celebrated our sixth anniversary on July 22, 1984, Danny had just been born three weeks previously. We had four sons, ages five, four, two, and newborn. We wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. 

Dan had been to a Christian event and learned a little song that became our theme song:

We’re going to lift up the name of Jesus,

We’re going to sing of the joy since He came.

We’re going to sing of His power,

every day, every hour,

We’re going to lift up that wonderful name!