By Gabriela Frei
My relationship with NFP has been a long one, spanning fourteen years, many tears shed (some of joy, some of anguish), five beautiful children on earth and one in heaven. Oftentimes with testimonies like this, you will hear stories of people overcoming incredible adversity or heartache with grace and faithfulness. These stories serve to spark our own faith and inspire us to do hard things. This is not one of those stories. I am here to share the other side of our journey with the Lord: those times when we kick and scream and rage against Him, fighting the plan that is deeply intended for our best good. I’m here to tell you how God loved me unconditionally in spite of my bad behavior.
Sometimes we have these lofty plans that are thought out down to the moment: graduate, marry the man of my dreams, dominate my field of choice, and then maybe I’ll have a perfect little baby or two. But only when I’m good and ready.
That is not how my story goes. God sent four little blessings in his good time, when He deemed me good and ready. Some came at incredibly challenging times, and others came exactly in tandem with my plan. I praised, I struggled, I adapted, and I surrendered. I had always planned to have four children—so what if the first and third came sooner than expected?
All was well in my world, and I prepared to gracefully exit the baby stage, and move forward into the parenting of older kids. We had converted our nursery into a playroom, donated our baby stuff to other friends expecting their own little ones, and I gave thanks to God for the incredible gift of four healthy, beautiful children. I finally felt like I had a handle on this NFP business – two surprises and two planned pregnancies seemed like an acceptable way to arrive at the four children I had always planned on. God and I had worked together to achieve this goal and check off this achievement in my life plan. Look at how well I was planning my family—naturally!
Not two months later, we discovered that I was once again pregnant. To say that I was utterly devastated is a massive understatement. I had my chart analyzed by an official NFP instructor and it was confirmed one of those dastardly 2% method fail pregnancies. And my world imploded around me.
How could I be pregnant again? I was faithful and obedient! I didn’t use birth control, condoms, or any of the things forbidden to me! I followed all the rules! I could not believe that God had “failed” me so deeply. I felt utterly abandoned by my supposed loving Father, who had “ignored” my deep need for self-care and healing and had instead “dumped yet another life to prioritize over my own” into my already overstretched hands. Instead of entering a season where I could finally prioritize myself and my own needs, I once again was at a place where a tiny growing person was utterly dependent on me for their every sustenance.
And I absolutely could not handle it. I raged, I cried, and I lashed out at God. In a moment of desperate weakness, I briefly considered exploring the option to terminate. It fills me with deep shame to even type these words out. I have been a devout and faithful Catholic my entire life. I would never have imagined that I could even entertain the notion of aborting my child. But the thought did cross my mind. Praise God for my husband and my best friend who kept me accountable and reminded me that I was strong and could do this very hard thing. And God Himself loved me and was so very present to me in the midst of this desperation and weakness and anger and temptation. He believed in me in spite of my deep lack of faith that His plan was for my best good, and my refusal to believe that I could do whatever He asked.
But I could. And I did. With the grace of faithful sisters in Christ holding my hand, with the deep and tireless love and support of my husband calling me on, and with the constant presence of God in spite of my anger against Him, I brought my beautiful daughter into the world. And she simply could not be more perfect for our family. She is the light of Jesus to her siblings, who adore her beyond telling. She is laughter and joy, and so very clearly fills an empty place that we didn’t even realize was there. She is my living reminder that God loves me so deeply, that He sees me and cares for me, and trusts that I can bring about my part of His miraculous and salvific plan for the world today.
I like to joke that only two out of my five children were planned. But that’s really not the truth of it. The truth of it is that all five of these souls were planned from the creation of the world to be mine—to be loved by me specifically, mothered by me specifically, brought to the heart of God by me specifically. If that isn’t a sobering and awe-inspiring statement, I don’t know what is. God has chosen to place His trust in me, despite my own reservations and resistance. If it were up to me, my beautiful daughters wouldn’t exist today, because I would not have been open to the gift of their lives. And my world would be a shadow of what it currently is. But more than that, the world as a whole would be a shadow of what it could be. My daughters are filled with a power and a passion that foreshadows women who will do great things. Maybe someday they will bring new warriors for God into the world. Or maybe they will bring about change that is so desperately needed. They will be forces for light and for good in this world, and that is because of my “yes.”
All of this joy and all of this awesome responsibility comes because I use NFP. Practicing NFP has deepened my relationship with God in a very honest and vulnerable way—sometimes I have surrendered my will to his plan like Mary did, and sometimes I have deeply resisted. I choose daily to be obedient and faithful to the teachings of our church because I know so deeply now that God hears me and sees me as a Father does. And sometimes He sees a better and brighter future than my feeble plans can allow.
But the glory of the dawn of day doesn’t come without the deepest dark of night. I suffered deeply through the course of my pregnancy. And I’ll be honest, five children is a lot for me sometimes, and there are days when I have a moment of weakness and say, “I didn’t ask for this challenge! It’s too much!” But God believes in me. He believes that not only can I do this hard thing well, but that these five amazing people could only be mothered by me. My children will go into the world and bring light and truth, and part of that will be because of my motherhood. Only I can do this specific hard thing. This is why I practice NFP: if God believes in me and gives me the grace I need, I can do unbelievable things.
Gabriela Frei is a Catholic singer/songwriter that lives in Fort Myers, Florida. She has been blessed with a wonderfully supportive husband and five gorgeous kiddos. She can regularly be found doing handstands, backflips, and other such nonsense. You can listen to her music on Facebook, Amazon, iTunes, and Spotify by searching Gabriela Frei, or at www.gabrielafrei.com.