I have noticed that people are not commenting on my previous post. I shall now stick my neck out give my opinion. The views that are stated here are my thoughts only and if you disagree with them that is fine. I am not attacking anyone who has proceeded differently than we have.
There is one thing I feel very strongly about. This concerns the speed with which some couples decide to have children. I believe it is better for couples to make a decision stating we will not get pregnant or try to get pregnant until we have been married for at least a year. Now, some of you are seriously considering deleting this blog from your computer favorites. Let me explain why I feel this way before you decide to make such a move.
I believe it is better for a couple to live together as a couple without all of the interesting emotional and physical changes a pregnancy will bring to the marriage. I believe that it is best if you can live together solidifying the marriage with out the aforementioned additional stress. There are enough things that couples need to adjust to without adding a pregnancy or a child into the mix in that first crucial year.
This is getting to long so I will not take more of your valuable time today. I will continue to give my view in my next post.
Also, let me say once again that this is only my personal opinion and if you and your spouse have a different opinion than God bless you. (Maybe God has given you more grace than He has given us.)I would love your comments but I am not going to get into a fight with anyone on the issue.
8 comments:
We were married about 7 years. I think this is to long. It was also unplanned. To long in the sense that at some point you need to move forward, focus on something other than children. Anyone who has struggled with infertility will understand what I am saying. Waiting to get married till you are ready to have children is radical....
I think that could be wise. What is the deciding factor on when you are ready to have children? How do you know?
I think in saying waiting 1 yr. to have a child, Glen was saying at least one year. Depending on the circumstances more would definetly be good/helpful.
The concept of being ready to have a child before you get married.... to one extent yes, that should be true, because it is a very real possibility that you might conceive at any time, and you wouldn't want to be devastated about something so wonderful and special. But on the other hand, how can you be completely ready before you even get married. One of the reasons I think it is good to wait a year after you get married is so that you can learn to relate to each other as husband and wife, you certainly can't do that before you get married. So I agree that it is good to at least be at the point that you would be excited and "ready" to have a baby before getting married, but I still think a year give or take some would be beneficial as a couple. You will never be alone again for YEARS! I don't know this from experience but seems like the good foundation of that year or so right after marriage before children would be benefical to the years after your children are grown and gone. And I do know this from experience, those years before children are of great value when you do have children. Even though I think our 7 years before we had children was a little to long, I would never trade the time of being just the two of us, the things we learned, and the growing closer that we experienced. And really how can we say that 7 years was to long for us... It was obviously God ordained.
Shine in your comment you said God is going to give a child when it's His time, no matter what we do. Is that completely true? I do believe that God can do ANYTHING, but at the same time He often works within our choices. If we say that God gives a child when it is His time no matter what we do then why does it matter what we do? And the opposite should also be true, God will NOT give us a baby no matter what we do if it isn't His time. I feel like I am not making any sense. I have it figured out in my head but can't find the words to say what I am thinking. Do you understand at all what I am saying?
Basically we are saying God's will is done no matter what we do. I am just wondering if that is really true? It wasn't God's will for Eve to eat that fruit.
I forgot to sign my name at the end of that comment, but you can always tell which ones are mine because they are so LONG, and Glen's are usually much shorter. He says just as much with less words, I stammer and studder around and say just as little with MORE words. :-) He is such a good man!
Rachel
I'm not trying to step on anyone's toes...but here's what happened for us--
We felt that we should wait a while before having children, with Vernon in school. Obviously having 7 years of schooling ahead of him when we got married says that having children right away could be more stress than we need to put ourselves through for a while, especially financially and family-wise.
I personally struggled with the reasoning of using 'common sense', etc., in 'planning' our conception, wondering if God would grant us a child later when we wanted if we say, Not now, God, we're not ready", then later say, "Okay, we want to start our family", and expect God to work with us, rather than working with His timing. Does that make sense?
However, we felt God gives us minds to think for ourselves and to use the common sense He gave us to make decisions, therefore allowing us to 'be careful', yet knowing that He is STILL in control.
Two months after we were married, I found out I was pregnant. It was a devastation, because it wasn't in our plans for the first year or two. It took a little while for both of us to accept this as God's will and not be resentful of His timing.
So what do you call that? Poor planning on our part? I don't think so. It doesn't matter how 'planned' you are, or what contraceptives you use, etc., GOD DECIDES WHEN YOU WILL CONCEIVE!
~Lez
Oh dear, Glen, then you are finished!! Four children!! ha. So my niece, Rachel's cousin is pregnant after her husband had a vasectomy....must be God's plan even though doctors didn't want her pregnant again because of Crone's disease!! ( I think this comment is under the wrong place!! I am just learning!!) I'm an old lady with grandkids now!! Aunty Norma
We don't regret having children right away. . . My brother-in-law has asked me more than once if we could do it over again would we do differently? I don't think we would . . . It has not been easy . . . But is easy better?
I was still recooping from hormonal changes from ovarian cancer, so I was a "mess" anyway! It was a bit rough with that and being pregnant right away and I moving into a new commmunity, but married life isn't always a bed of roses anyway . . . we are real people with a sin nature . . . I think one of the purposes of marriage is to make us more holy, being in such close contact, the other sees your strengths and weakness and helps you along. If anything we grew closer because of the "stress."
I think too that if you don't leave it all in God's hands you do feel like you have "intruders". Don't get me wrong . . . I have had my share of struggling with "do I want another child right now" (There's THE I WORD!) . . . But for me it all boils down to "not my will but thine be done" . . .
Can I be blunt and say that I feel there are way too many selfish reasons hidden behind spacing and waiting?
Cannot we trust God that He knows best? I have found great peace in this. At times we have tried "natural birth control" and it left me all stressed out. I have such a great peace leaving it in God's hands.
How can I really know what's ahead? . . . I might think I do or have certain plans . . . but God knows what HE wants to do with my life and His thoughts and ways are so much more higher than mine.
"Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and LEAN NOT UNTO THINE OWN UNDERSTANDING. In all thy ways aknowledge Him and He will direct thy paths." PROV. 3:5-6
THE ROSE
It is only a tiny rosebud - -
A flower of God’s design;
But I cannot unfold the petals,
With these clumsy hands of mine.
The secret of unfolding flowers
Is not known to such as I - -
The flower that God opens so sweetly
In my hands would fade and die.
If I cannot unfold a rosebud
This flower of God’s design,
Then how can I think I have the wisdom,
To unfold this life of mine?
So I’ll look to HIm for HIs leading
Each moment of every day,
And I’ll look to Him for HIs guidance,
Each step of the pilgrim way.
For the pathway that lies before me
My Heavenly Father knows - -
I’ll trust HIm to unfold the moments
Just as He unfolds the rose.
- Selected
I have a question...is this a sin issue we are referring to here or simply a strong preference? I'm not referring to the medicinal b.c. but simply the whole planned parenthood issue.
Here are my feeble thoughts on the matter.
First of all, what is marriage for? Why did God make it? In today's world, we tend to adopt the secular mindset that it is primarily for companionship and enjoyment. Yet are not these two reasons strongly rooted (not always but more often than not) in our fleshly desires. Yet God calls us to be reproductive in our lives, both spritualy and physically. If marriage is a reflection of our relationship of Christ and the church, than we need to bear fruit according to His plan, not ours.
You look in Scripture and find a place where children are spoken of in a negetive sense. It is only the times of refering to their upbringing that they are spoken thus of.
It was not too many years ago in the recent past that childlessness was seen as a curse, not an advantage. Why this fundamental shift? I think Leslie nailed it with the observations that we think we can plan God's schedule around ours, and isn't that a little egotistical? What if when we "are ready," God chooses to withold his unwanted blessings?
Why do we want free time before children? We often say it's because of wanting time to get to "know" our spouse in a better way. Yet, if the truth be told, there isn't a much better way to learn to show true love than when the other may not always be totaly loavable. You will learn to know your spouse really well and very quickly as you go thru the child-bearing process. I feel that there is nothing wrong with asking God for some time, if that is what you both agree on, but we must be willing to joyfully accept His plan, whatever that may be. I have had to learn that little principle again this week all over again.
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