The Yoke of NFP
Today, as we drove home from visiting the super bloom, we were surrounded by green hills covered with carpets of yellow, purple, and orange flowers. I scrolled through the pictures I had taken earlier and came across this one, the very last one I took on my “good” camera and I was struck by Matthew 11:30, “My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” And friends, this has been so true for me, never more so than now.
Years ago I held a white knuckle grip on my fertility, terrified of letting go of control, scared of having ‘too many’ kids, or of appearing to be irresponsible weirdos. (I mean, let’s be honest: maybe I am a weirdo. If I had an ‘ordinary’ number of kids, I would have been done potty training ages ago. 😅😂) With age has come the freedom to accept more gracefully the abundance of life God has poured into our lives. Each of these youngest 3 hooligans has been welcomed with joy and yes, sometimes hysterical, maniacal laughter. #wherewillweputthem? #amiright?
I no longer worry that I’ll have too many babies, though, and now I ache with the knowledge that someday soon there won’t be a baby to cuddle and nurse, a toddler to read picture books to, a kid to joke around with. Someday there won’t even be a teenager to tease, or hug when she’s sad.
Somehow, having a loud house with lots of needy kids is an easier yoke than the control I sought before. Not easier in the my-feet-are-up-and-I’m-watching-soaps-and-eating-bonbons kind of way, but in the big-and-wide-and-deep knowledge that my life is full of ... life. And as messy as that may be, I will choose life over the illusion of control, any day.
What might look from the outside to be enslavement to a big family is the thing that has made me truly free. My heart is full and free to love deeply.
His yoke, which is * N O T H I N G * like the one I had fashioned for myself, turns out to be exactly right for me. And when this yoke feels too heavy, it’s because I’m trying to do it alone, and I forget that that’s the one thing He never, ever asked me to do.
And no, I am not pregnant. Yes, I am sure. 😘
