Celebrating the responsibility of our creative power {Freedom’s Calling, part 2}

June 14, 2018July 2, 2018 ~ Laura ~ 14 Comments

Today, please welcome Amy Thomas for part two in Freedom’s Calling – my series commemorating Humanae Vitae’s 50th anniversary and sharing the journeys of Catholics who have come to understand and embrace the truth of this teaching. For more information on the series, you can read part 1 here, part 3 here, part 4 here, part 5 here, part 6 here, and part 7 here.

I grew up in the Disciples of Christ church. Growing up, there was never any talk about contraception. My parents never really talked to me about it and really the only thing I knew about it was through school and friends. When I turned 18, I went with a girlfriend down to the local health clinic and got on birth control pills. It was just what you did. I didn’t even think twice about it, because nearly every girl I knew was on birth control pills. It almost seemed like an initiation into womanhood.

Looking back now, I am shocked at how little I knew about the pill and how willing I was to ingest something without even considering it. I fell in lock-step with what the culture told me was normal and gave it little thought. When I went to the health clinic, they didn’t run any medical tests to see if I was in a healthy condition to take these pills. They didn’t ask about my health history. They didn’t educate me at all about the pill, other than to tell me how to take it. I had no clue what it did to my body or how it worked. The whole process took maybe a half and hour. At the end of my appointment, they handed me my little brown bag of free pills and off I went.

It’s interesting, but there wasn’t a single person in my teen years that offered a different view about contraception. I just assumed that it was the “responsible” thing to do, because that’s what teachers in school told me. I didn’t understand my body and how it worked. Sure, I knew that sex brought about babies and I knew that a woman had a menstrual cycle. However, I was extremely ignorant about the workings of the female body and fertility. I was influenced most by my friends who all encouraged me to be on the pill, and my boyfriends who happily endorsed it.

Before I became Catholic, I was extremely against Catholicism. However, I knew very little or nothing at all about the Catholic faith and its teachings. My husband is Catholic and when we married, I was completely in the dark on the Catholic teachings on contraception. At the Engaged Encounter we attended before marriage, the speakers touched on the Church’s teachings, but it was difficult for me to fully take it in. One really needs to understand the Catholic Church before being hit with what it teaches about contraception.

I remember that I didn’t really think much about what the speakers said. At that time, I wasn’t Catholic and didn’t plan on becoming Catholic. In my mind there was no reason for me to accept what the Church taught regarding this subject. Plus, I couldn’t fully grasp what the speakers were teaching because I didn’t have a frame of reference for anything that they were talking about.

At that time, my husband was lukewarm in his faith and I don’t think he fully understood the Catholic view of human sexuality. We lived against the teachings, but mostly because we didn’t understand it and I was still Protestant. There was really nothing that was going to make me stop and consider the ramifications of taking birth control, except a wake-up call. God gave me that wake-up call in my late 20’s. A health scare related to the pill started my husband and I on a path that really opened our eyes to the beauty and truth of what the Catholic Church teaches on this subject.

Very quickly back when I had started taking the pill in high school, I started having terrible side effects. In college, I had an incident that found me faint, delirious, and foaming at the mouth in a restaurant bathroom. I went to the hospital and they couldn’t find anything wrong with me. Then one afternoon at home I started reading all about the side effects of the pill on my package insert. I was experiencing nearly all of them and so I stopped taking it. Not wanting to get pregnant, I went to the doctor and she immediately put me on a lower dose pill. No check-up, no discussion of healthier alternatives. The only option was a lower dose pill.

I took that pill and over the years I switched from one pill to the next because of adverse side effects. One day in 2009, I was at work and I had this horrible pain in my heart that spread up into my left shoulder and down my arm. I immediately googled it and everything that came up was linked to birth control pills. All the warnings said to stop taking the pill immediately if you felt that pain. I called my husband and he told me that this had to stop. We decided that ingesting birth control pills wasn’t good for my health anymore. But, what to do?

Slowly but surely, we found our way to Natural Family Planning. To my surprise, I found that it made sense and was reasonable and logical. Through learning about NFP, I became enraged that I had never learned the wonder of my body. A woman’s body is amazing. All the signs it gives you to help you understand your cycle and fertility are fascinating. We do such a disservice to young people by just throwing contraception at them and telling them that this is the only way to be responsible. Once my husband and I were taught how to use NFP, we’ve never looked back. It’s healthy, promotes communication, and helps me to understand my body and not treat my fertility as if it’s something awful to be feared.

There are times when NFP requires discipline and sacrifice, but it’s not impossible to practice. Discipline makes us better people. Sacrifice helps us to grow in love and shed selfish tendencies.

The Church doesn’t want women ingesting or inserting harmful things into our bodies. Our natural fertility is not an enemy to snuff out with harmful chemicals. Our reproductive system is the only system where we as humans use chemicals and other means in order to keep it from working naturally. Nobody is taking pills to make their heart stop beating. Nobody wants to insert a device that makes their kidneys not function properly. The Church is protecting us from harmful products that the world would have us use in the interest of pleasure without natural consequences.

Most important of all is the fact that bringing forth life is not a bad thing. It’s a beautiful thing! That the marital embrace can bring forth life and spouses can be co-creators with God of a new human being is truly amazing. This should be celebrated.

Amy hails from the great state of Kansas, though she’s lived the last 16 years away from the “Land of Oz” traveling the country with with her Air Force Airman. She graduated from Kansas State University in 2001 and married her love, Dustin, that same year. She has three amazing kiddos–two daughters and a son. Amy runs the website Catholic Pilgrim where she loves to write about the incredible journey of living a genuine, authentic Catholic life. You can connect with her online over on Instagram and on her Facebook page Catholic Pilgrim.

Suggested resources:

Amy found the Couple to Couple League Magazine helpful, as well as the help and encouragement of Catholic bloggers on social media who devote a lot of energy to this topic. Catholic Wife, Catholic Life and To Jesus, Sincerely are two of her favorites.

Want more of this series?

Part 1: My Introduction

Part 3: Self Control and Our Ultimate Mission with Kristi Denoy of Hail Marry

Part 4: The Ripple Effect of Chastity in my Life with Katie Herzing of Becoming Perfectly Myself

Part 5: Moved by NFP with Heidi Indahl of Work and Play, Day by Day

Part 6: Freedom in Surrender with Laura Durant Healing Heart of Jesus

Part 7 (the end): When God’s generosity meets the demands of conscience and science with Leslie Sholly of Life in Every Limb

Freedom’s Calling {A Humanae Vitae Series Introduction}

June 11, 2018July 2, 2018 ~ Laura ~ 20 Comments

In a world where self-fulfillment is the goal, sex is a rite of passage in teenage years, contraception is viewed as a responsibility, and kids are seeing pornography before turning ten, it is an unthinkable and even laughable notion to forsake instant gratification and choose sacrifice in the realm of human sexuality.

Yet, here we are. And we’re not laughing about the issues throwing caution to the wind has led to.

We are living in a time when generations are becoming progressively more lonely. Many people are sexually confused or tragically abused. It doesn’t take much to realize that this area of life has become one of deep confusion, addiction, and personal tragedy.

No group of people is exempt from this madness. And no group really agrees on causes, effects, or solutions.

Even among those who identify as Catholic, our views vary on what is and isn’t acceptable. For example, a Pew Research Study released in September 2016 found that only 8% of responding Catholics viewed contraception as morally wrong, 41% as morally acceptable, and 48% as “not a moral issue”. As an imperfect but faithful Catholic, I am part of that 8% and stand behind what my church teaches. In fact, all Christian denominations denounced contraception until the Anglican Bishop’s Lambeth Conference of 1930 first accepted it in a vote of 193 to 67. In far less than a century, the entire landscape of family life and reproductive health has radically changed.

Some laud the development of effective contraception as finally getting with the times. But the Catholic Church has staunchly recognized from the beginning several things:

Men and women were created for each other, as is self-evident in our complimentary nature.
Men and women were gifted by God with the possibility of co-creating new human beings together by mirroring the creative love of God revealed in the community of persons we call the Trinity.
Bringing a new human life into existence is a great responsibility, and a natural end of sex. So is the bonding of spouses.
Marriage was established by God as the permanent partnership between man and woman whereby children can be raised in a legally bound and sacramentally graced union.
Sex is meant for spouses committed to each other in marriage because by nature, the total giving of oneself with the potential of creating a child only makes sense in a committed, vowed, relationship.

To be honest, it doesn’t make perfect sense to be writing about this. I am single as they come at this point. I have no personal experience being married. But I come from a family, could certainly have my own one day, and have a vested interest in the health and well being of my fellow human beings. I have for a while.

It’s been a relatively long time since I first started reading and learning about Catholicism’s approach to these issues. I started reading a lot of current events back toward the end of high school when I got on Facebook and the pro-life movement first came on my radar. From there, it’s been a continuous process of slowly building my understanding. Why? I just realized that the world falls short of what we’re made for, and had to find out why and how and for what I was created.

I took a class on Christian Marriage in college (which was so good), and have read extensively on Theology of the Body and these issues because let’s be real: if a Catholic doesn’t do that nowadays, why stand behind what the Church teaches? How is one convicted enough to stick to something they don’t understand?

Some of the key books I’ve read or am reading.

Understanding how I am made, and God’s plan for love and life is necessary in these times. If I hadn’t taken the personal responsibility to learn the why behind what people already know the Church teaches, who knows what kind of different choices I would have made. But here, now? I certainly have only scratched the surface, but am convicted that if more people could seek and grasp a deeper understanding, our world would be so different.

There is a great battle happening in our culture and in our souls for not just the unsatisfying license to do whatever we want, but the true freedom to order our lives rightly. To master ourselves. To break free of sin and slavery to ourselves. This is possible for anyone, and a necessity for everyone. As G. K. Chesterton put it, “It is the paradox of history that each generation is converted by the saint who contradicts it most.” Do you want to be part of changing our culture? It seems like such a hard thing by society’s standards, but Josemaría Escrivá encourages us that “When you decide firmly to lead a clean life, chastity will not be a burden on you: it will be a crown of triumph.”

Much of the time Catholics have this discussion in terms of married people (which is undoubtedly important). But coming to understand that no matter our state in life, we are all made to love out of self-gift was a transformative realization in my life. There is something in this for everyone. It’s hard to explain, but for me, it completely changed how I love people. (And here are some ways I’ve shared how to live this as a single person.)

I realized too often I did things with an expectation of what would be given back, which left me feeling unloved when things aren’t reciprocated. Seeing acts of love instead as a free gift of myself is different, because gifts have no strings attached. They are undeserved and cannot be earned.

That kind of love is what Catholicism shows us is possible and calls every one of us to live in different ways specific to our state of life.

Though the world says sleeping around, watching pornography, and using contraception are normal, I am here to tell you that it is possible to say no to all of that. Not only is it possible, it is empowering. Beautiful. Freeing.

I am free from addiction.

I am free from the worry of STD’s, getting pregnant before being married, and the emotional baggage that sleeping around brings.

I am free to live my best life until or unless a guy comes along with the same standards.

I am free to understand and respect how my body works naturally and not pump it full of synthetic hormones.

I am free to love and sacrifice fully, with nothing holding me back.

I am free from being enslaved by bodily passions.

I am free.

Insert appropriately cheesy picture from college days // JM Media

With the 50th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae next month, I wanted to share this with you in the hope of broaching an awkward and controversial conversation, as per usual. This document (written by a soon to be canonized saint) reaffirmed Catholicism’s long standing stance on the issue of contraception and prophetically foretold what would happen with the broad acceptance of contraception, when at the height of the sexual revolution the world expected the Church to bow. But it didn’t, because this is one of those issues that gets to the heart of what it means to be human, and will never change.

There are people out there committed to this too. It’s not just some fringe religious nutcases. There are well educated, faithful, joyful people living out this truth in ordinary and extraordinary ways, so this post is just the beginning of a seven part series. Each person will share a bit about how they came to understand and embrace this message of life-giving love. It is a journey. Wherever you are in yours, my hope is that this series encourages you to ask hard questions, learn more, and consider how you are called to respond in your own life.

This radical self-gift kind of love is what each of us is capable of giving.

This is what we are free to do through self mastery and right ordering of our passions.

This is the calling on each of our lives.

This is Freedom’s Calling.

–

Check back and follow along in the coming weeks for the remaining guest posts of this series! Feel free to contact me and participate in the comment section with any input and discussion.

Here are links to the rest of the posts:

Part 2: Celebrating the responsibility of our creative power with Amy Thomas of Catholic Pilgrim

Part 3: Self Control and Our Ultimate Mission with Kristi Denoy of Hail Marry

Part 4: The Ripple Effect of Chastity in my Life with Katie Herzing of Becoming Perfectly Myself

Part 5: Moved by NFP with Heidi Indahl of Work and Play, Day by Day

Part 6: Freedom in Surrender with Laura Durant Healing Heart of Jesus

Part 7 (the end): When God’s generosity meets the demands of conscience and science with Leslie Sholly of Life in Every Limb

To Life,

Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or drop a personal email.

On defunding Planned Parenthood

February 13, 2017 ~ Laura ~ 1 Comment

Leading up to the nationwide Protest Planned Parenthood rallies (which occurred last Saturday), I spoke with a reporter about why I am one of many people who support stripping the group of federal funding. I appreciated being able discuss my position, one that many people in my local vicinity would consider ridiculous. And I truly respect journalists who take time to listen and include both sides of the issues they cover. But when the article came out, the pro-life position was sorely misrepresented and under-represented.

So here’s my response.

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There seems to be this prevailing mindset in America that Planned Parenthood is the primary healthcare provider for low-income women. It’s true that according to PP, 60% of their patients rely on programs such as Medicaid to receive services. And I want to be clear that my goal is not to take away ethical and needed medical care from anyone. Quite the opposite, I am in full support of resources such as the developing app Help Assist Her, which will make affordable healthcare resources more easily accessible. But most of the arguments, if you can call them that, coming from Planned Parenthood supporters center on this point.

There are several problems with this narrative:

Relatively speaking, Planned Parenthood sees a minuscule number of Americans. Out of ~320 million citizens, they see about 2.5 million/year, so about .7%. Saying millions of women will lose their healthcare is at best a gross exaggeration. Of course some people have had cancer detected and STD’s caught at PP clinics. That’s not what I’m talking about though.

People need far more comprehensive healthcare than what Planned Parenthood offers. We know from recent videos released from Live Action that Planned Parenthood is dishonest about many of their services. Most recently, we’ve realized how they’ve exaggerated the prenatal care only a few of their clinics offer. Most facilities will only see pregnant women who are seeking an abortion. It’s no surprise, then, that abortion equals about 94% of pregnancy outcomes for PP patients.

We also know that Planned Parenthood has been involved in extensive Medicaid fraud. See results of recent audits starting on page 311 of this document. Shouldn’t this be part of the conversation? Especially since a LOT of their funding comes from Medicaid reimbursements, I think we need to be honest about how the funding they receive is billed and used.

One of THE most important parts of this conversation, I think, is that while abortion, sterilization, and contraceptive services have been increasing in number over the last several years, PP’s other (less controversial) services such as prenatal care, STD tests, breast exams, etc.) have steadily been decreasing (details). If we want to have a logical conversation about policy and federal funding, then I need to know why our government should fund an organization so focused on a limited number of controversial services.

And finally, if serving women and families and impoverished individuals is a priority for Planned Parenthood, wouldn’t they find a way to do so without federal funding? This is how many non-profits work. They depend on people who believe in their mission to keep the doors open. So why is PP an exception? Why would federal funding being taken away from PP stop them from seeing the patients they care so much about? You see, it wouldn’t. They’d just have to do it on their own dime, not mine. That’s obviously a scary thought to an entity whose budget is funded over 40% by our government.

This issue is about so much more than abortion. Yes, Planned Parenthood is America’s largest abortion provider. But this is also about people being able to find good healthcare from ethical and responsible providers. It’s about being able to voice where my tax money should and shouldn’t be spent.

There are a number of perfectly reasonable reasons I support redirecting federal funding from Planned Parenthood to Federally Qualified Healthcare Centers. My voice matters. Yours does too. And it’s time reporters and the media started listening to people like me and including us in the conversation.

To LIFE,

P.S. Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Bloglovin’ or by email.

Why Planned Parenthood Shouldn’t be Federally Funded

January 16, 2017 ~ Laura ~ 5 Comments

Planned Parenthood is at risk of loosing their federal funding, and people are losing their minds. People with lower incomes won’t be able to access healthcare, right? I agree that we shouldn’t take healthcare away from people. But I also think Planned Parenthood’s impact is thoroughly overrated. So, in no particular order, here’s why I think it’s a sensible decision to redirect PP’d federal funding to other healthcare providers.

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1. The healthcare they provide is extremely limited. They’ll provide a pregnancy test, pap smear, morning after pill, STD test, abortion, sterilization, manual breast exam (which you can do yourself), and contraception. As far as healthcare goes, that’s a small scope of care. Saying people will lose “healthcare” without PP is grossly inaccurate, because PP doesn’t provide a comprehensive scope of care.

2. They aren’t actually the primary healthcare provider for many people. The self-reported number of patients they see in a year? 2.5 million. Out of somewhere near 320 million Americans, that’s . . . not very many. If you want to know the exact number, that’s .7% of Americans who go to PP in a given year. So will “millions” of people lose their care? No.

3. According to their annual reports, their abortion, sterilization, and contraceptive services have consistently been increasing over the last 10 years. All of their non-controversial services (STD tests, breast exams, etc.) have been steadily decreasing. [see info] I think this shows a significant bias. And I think taxpayers have every right to demand our hard earned money isn’t going toward biased and controversial organizations.

4. As they’ve proven recently, PP supporters are quite capable of financially supporting the organization themselves. Why force taxpayers to fund a controversial organization when they have supporters to keep doors open? I think if they tightened their budget a little and didn’t spend $30 million on trying to get Hillary Clinton elected, they might be able to survive just like any other nonprofit: with private donations.

5. They’ve over billed Medicaid and financially benefited from the program by over $8.5 MILLION. And that’s a conservative estimate. See section starting on page 311 of this report. Since much of their government funding comes from Medicaid reimbursements, I think we need to get real about how much they’ve abused that program.

6. There are thousands of federally qualified healthcare centers to help people facing low incomes. Actually, there are 20 for every PP facility. If funds are redirected from Planned Parenthood to these centers, lower income individuals will have more access to more comprehensive care. So to say people will not have access to healthcare is a blatant lie. Take a look at this map from the Charlotte Lozier Institute.

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But what is a Federally Qualified Health Center? It’s a healthcare provider that “must serve an underserved area or population, offer a sliding fee scale, provide comprehensive services, have an ongoing quality assurance program, and have a governing board of directors”. By meeting these requirements, the center qualifies for federal funding. Is that what everyone wants?

Looking at this information, I don’t see a logical objection to redirecting money from Planned Parenthood to Federally Qualified Health Centers. There are thousands more FQHC’s, which makes them more accessible. They provide a much more comprehensive scope of care, so we’re giving people better care. And they come without the controversy of being America’s #1 abortion provider (who’s been referred to the FBI for possible prosecution and found to be guilty of many crimes). This looks like a win-win situation to me.

Do you agree? Disagree? Let’s talk in the comments!

To LIFE,

P.S. Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Bloglovin’ or by email.

An open letter to Americans about kids

July 15, 2014 ~ Laura ~ 12 Comments

Did you see this article: “I’m Not Prejudiced, I Just Don’t Like 25% of Humanity”? In it, Haley talks about how (in general) America has become anti-child. People get mad if kids are disruptive in a restaurant. Crying on flights? How thoughtless of the small monster! And if they fail to be silent in Mass? Get. Out. Ya’ll just better stop raining on my parade.

Dear America: You can do better.

Thinking about it, it’s no surprise that people write things like the “26 Important Reminders Why Birth Control Exists” Haley linked to. Kids are just these little tasmanian devils that eat your money and steal your soul, not to mention your sleep. So it would make sense that people don’t like them.

I come from a big family, and I’ve been around big families my entire life. While I’m not a mom, I’ve cared for kids and grown up knowing that while kids can be hard, they are worth it. And doing all the reading I do now has only helped cement that belief.

So when I read that buzzfeed list of why to use birth control, I honestly had to laugh. It’s sad, yes, the comments people made on it. They are so afraid of kids that crayons on the wall bother them? What? I mean, look at that smiling face when kids say “I love you”. Menacing! Artwork on the car? Terrifying! Yes, there’s a limit to where kids should be allowed and how they should behave. But come on. Baby smiles are so precious, even if it’s because they just farted. Yes, I said that. Maybe kids will put oatmeal in their hair and spread bodily fluids all over their bed. Maybe they will scream and you can’t figure out why.

Maybe they will make other people uncomfortable, but that’s okay. We need to get uncomfortable.

We need to realize that while it’s not okay for kids to totally misbehave, we need to cut them some slack. Kids have so much pressure to be perfect. “Sit still” you hiss at them, or “Write your name perfectly 10 times”. Since when did we have so many crazy expectations for kids? Where are the days when kids roamed the neighborhood and made memories with friends? Some of my fondest childhood memories are of getting dirty in the mud in our backyard. We would play restaurant or re-decorate a recycled Christmas tree. I had the freedom to be creative. Yes, that did turn into a big mud fight that got on our house once. We had to clean that one up! My brothers tried to eat snails and worms too. Many of my dolls received haircuts, and my favorite blanket is in shreds. Childhood is just kind of messy.

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But so what?

It’s an absolute shame that when we see kids now, we see only what they take away from us. We have our perfect little sanitized life and if there’s an itty bitty dirty hand involved oh my landa would ya’ll get the Purell STAT?!?!

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What about if we stopped complaining so much, and talked more about how they enrich our families and communities? Tell me about the time the kids surprised you with breakfast in bed. The homemade cards. The messy baby kisses. Honestly, when I read the buzzfeed thing I was cracking up. The kids (for the most part) are being kids! They’re going to be messy. They are not always going to be quiet.

Shame on us if we can’t see the beauty in that.

If you don’t have experience with kids, I can see why you might be afraid of them. From my limited experience, I’ve gathered that it’s a lot of work. If you’ve never seen those precious baby smiles and the laughter of little kids filled with glee, completely oblivious to our messed up world, you’ve missed out on something. And I’m sorry you’ve only seen the bad parts.

But that is not a valid excuse. Just because you don’t have good experiences with kids doesn’t mean you can make sweeping generalizations about them. Hating kids doesn’t say anything about them, but it says a lot about you.

So take some time to get to know families, especially families who openly love their kids and will let you see a glimpse of family life. Help a mom out when she drops something with a baby on her hip. Anonymously pay for a family’s dinner when their kids are behaving. Make dinners. Babysit. Challenge yourself to see the good. Who knows?

You might just fall in love with baby smiles.