October 11th Steve and I celebrate 40 years of marriage.
Forty years.
There is something about saying those words that makes me want to sit quietly for a moment and take it all in.
Lately, I have found myself looking back at our wedding pictures. I see that young woman standing beside the man she loved, making promises about a future she could not possibly understand yet.
She had no idea what those promises were going to ask of her.
She didn't know what 40 years of marriage would look like. She didn't know about all the joys, disappointments, babies, decisions, sacrifices, disagreements, celebrations, ordinary Tuesdays, prayers, mistakes, forgiveness, laughter and starting over that would fill those years.
And she certainly didn't understand that marriage was going to be one of the primary ways God would form her into the woman He created her to be.
I look at her now and find myself asking:
Who was I then? And who have I become?
I Didn't Understand Marriage as a Vocation
When I got married, I didn't really understand that marriage was a vocation.
I knew I loved Steve. I knew I wanted to build a life with him. But I didn't understand marriage as the particular path God was giving me to become a saint.
That understanding came later.
So did Natural Family Planning.
Steve and I weren't taught NFP before we married. I came to it somewhat backwards. Someone gave me a book, I became pregnant rather quickly, and eventually we learned what we needed to learn.
But over time, NFP became much more than a way of understanding my fertility.
It became part of our marriage.
And looking back over 40 years, I can see something I couldn't possibly have seen as that young bride:
God was using it to form me.
I Wanted to Become a Woman of Integrity
When I was younger, I wouldn't have described myself as a woman who understood virtue.
I knew character mattered. My dad
had instilled that in us. Be trustworthy. Be a person of integrity. Be someone whose actions match what she says she believes.
But I didn't really understand the language of virtue.
And I certainly hadn't lived all of my life virtuously.
That became especially important to me when I became a mother.
I had a daughter, and suddenly I was faced with a difficult question: How was I going to teach my daughter chastity when I had not always practiced chastity myself?
I didn't want to be the mother who said, "Do what I say, not what I did."
I wanted my children to see me striving to live what I was asking them to live.
That's when NFP introduced me to something beautiful: marital chastity.
Chastity wasn't merely something I could teach my children. It was something Steve and I could practice within our marriage.
I could live it.
I could practice it.
I could fail at it, get back up, learn, and keep practicing.
And that began changing my understanding of what it meant to become a virtuous woman.
Forty Years Has Taught Me That Virtue Is Practiced
In the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC #1803)describes virtue as a "habitual and firm disposition to do the good."
Habitual.
Firm.
Toward the good.
I love those words even more as I celebrate 40 years of marriage because marriage has taught me what they look like in real life.
Forty years is habitual.
Forty years is steady.
Forty years requires faithfulness.
Does that mean Steve and I have always done marriage beautifully?
Absolutely not.
There are virtues I am still working on today that I needed to work on at the beginning of our marriage!
But perhaps that's part of what I've learned.
A virtuous woman isn't a woman who naturally gets everything right.
She's a woman who keeps allowing God to form her.
She repents.
She forgives.
She asks forgiveness.
She goes to Confession.
She begins again.
She chooses the good again.
And again.
And again.
As long as we're breathing, God is still forming us.
NFP Has Been Part of That Formation
After 40 years, I can genuinely say that Natural Family Planning has been a gift to our marriage.
Not because it was always easy.
A gift doesn't have to be easy to be good.
NFP required us to communicate. It asked us to discern. It required us to consider not simply what I wanted or what Steve wanted, but what was good for our marriage and family.
Month after month, season after season, there were decisions to make.
Are we open to another child?
Do we have a serious reason to avoid pregnancy right now?
What is happening in my body?
What does our family need?
What is God asking of us?
Those aren't merely fertility questions.
They're formation questions.
NFP creates opportunities to practice patience, self-control, generosity, courage, trust and communication.
It doesn't automatically make anyone holy. You can chart perfectly and still be impatient with your husband. You can understand every fertile sign and still struggle to trust God.
I know because I have lived it.
But NFP continually gave us opportunities to practice.
And that practice matters.
The Woman in My Wedding Pictures Didn't Know This
Sometimes I wish I could sit beside that young woman in my wedding pictures.
I wouldn't tell her everything that was coming. I'm not sure she'd believe me anyway!
But I would tell her this:
Jane, God is going to use all of it.
He will use your marriage.
He will use motherhood.
He will use your body.
He will use your fertility.
He will use the seasons when you feel confident and the seasons when you have absolutely no idea what you're doing.
He will even use the places where you fall short.
Because marriage isn't simply about staying together long enough to reach a milestone anniversary.
It's about becoming.
After 40 years, I can see that more clearly than ever.
The question isn't simply, Did we make it?
The deeper question is:
Who have we become along the way?
Maybe We're Asking the Wrong Question About NFP
When NFP feels difficult, it's easy to ask:
Why is this so hard?
I understand that question.
But after all these years, I think there may be another question that can change the way we experience the struggle:
Lord, what is this giving me an opportunity to practice?
Maybe patience.
Maybe fortitude.
Maybe temperance.
Maybe generosity.
Maybe better communication with your husband.
Maybe surrender.
Maybe trust.
And perhaps the most important question of all:
Lord, who are You inviting me to become through this?
That is the question I find myself asking as Steve and I celebrate 40 years.
Because Natural Family Planning was never the ultimate goal.
Even marriage itself isn't the ultimate goal.
Heaven is.
Our marriages, our bodies, our fertility, our crosses, our joys and even our struggles can become instruments God uses to draw us toward Him.
NFP has been one of those instruments in my life.
Forty years later, I am profoundly grateful for that gift.
I am not the woman standing in those wedding pictures anymore.
Thank God.
He has loved her, challenged her, forgiven her, pruned her and continued calling her toward something greater.
And He's not finished yet.
So as I celebrate 40 years with the man I love, perhaps that is what I am most grateful for:
We are still becoming.
Still learning.
Still practicing.
Still beginning again.
Still choosing each other.
And, by the grace of God, still walking each other Home.