Children are such a blessing. We tried to get my wife broke after our first, but because we were so young doctors wouldn’t break her. Thank God. WE were cursed with birth control pills for eight years then really got saved in 1975 and through away the birth control pills, TV, and wife’s pants. Eight more children later, we don’t regret giving God CONTROL of the womb.

SEX IS MORE FUN WHEN YOU ARE MAKING BABIES. SURE, of course you have to want them, or at least be willing to take them. Problem is most Americans are too selfish and too busy chasting dollars to be good parents. WE have home schooled all nine, when it was NOT so legal.

Only the oldest two are married and we have ten grandchildren already (all born at home, just like our last seven.) God is a healer also.

Children end the generation gap and social security problems, but America has aborted theirs. So we now need imigration instead of enjoying grand children. Abortionists hate your children just as much as those that practice birth control.

FULL QUIVER is only FOR REAL CHRISTIANS.

God bless,

Grandpa Harvey

PS Once you are in your 50’s and then you WISH you had more children. It’s too late folks. Just DO IT and enjoy IT while you’re doing it.:-) Tell them grandpa told you.:-) Try it you will like it much better.

I have a friend who is just starting out in this movement and is getting my husband into it as well. We don’t believe in artificial contraception, but we use natural family planning, we have for a long time, and have found it to be a good fit for our family so far. But now he is talking like he believes in the quiverfull concept and it’s causing a lot of conflict between us.

We have 2 children already and I find that hard enough! I feel that I would be a much worse mother with more, especially since I’m dealing with clinical depression and have been told I should stay on medication for the rest of my life. My husband also has health problems, and if I were to lose him and be left with a large number of children, I don’t know how we would get by!

I find it difficult to believe that any woman would be willing to have 14 or 15 children without being coerced into it. I may be wrong, but that is just my opinion. Because for me, pregnancy, labor, and the post-partum period are absolutely miserable, and I think I would almost rather die than to spend the next 20 or so years like that, only to have children that I can’t adequately supervise or provide for. I would like to have a somewhat large family eventually (maybe 5 or 6) as long as they are reasonably spaced out to give me some time to recover!

I see no problem with people adhering to this philosophy if that is what they think is right. God gives us all free will. But I don’t think it’s right to say that people who use birth control are going against God, if they are just making a decision to do what’s right for thier family. It also concerns me that I think a lot of women may feel as you did, that it was not a choice but rather that they were coerced into believing that way against thier better judgement. That just seems like an injustice to me.

Mostly, I felt I was guilted into it because, how dare I prevent the hand of the Lord from moving.

(I have a rebuttal for that one, because I was a double birth control baby– looks like God can work past the B/C if He wants to!)

I am 27 now and we had 4 kids in 4 3/4 years (the first 2 are less than a year apart.) I was also going to home-school them — another thing I felt a lot of pressure *rather than conviction* to do.

I went absolutely *ABSOLUTELY* crazy trying to do all these things that would ‘please God’. I was in constant fear that I was going to get pregnant again, I seriously knew I could NOT handle another baby after #4.

This year, my husband and I came to the conclusion that God gave us a free will and that since this is not something our salvation hinges on, we decided to stop having children for the time being. I dont think it was in His will to make me totally insane trying to raise these kids. Also, I was VERY overweight while bearing these children back to back. My body never had a chance to recover. NOW, I am working to take the weight off and heal my body.

I absolutely love my children, please dont get me wrong.

Neither my husband or I grew up around children so we had NO idea how to handle 1, let alone 4, so it was a huge stressor to just try and figure some of the very basic things out, while having one after another after another. This past year, we found out our 3rd is autistic– that was one of the determining factors about putting more procreation on hold. Not because we want to prevent further autism from showing up in the family (not at all!), but because we didnt think it was fair to him to have a lot of extra siblings to take care of on top of trying to constantly work with him. We really want to help him get the best he can out of life and these years are critical to his development.

We dont feel as though we are disobeying the Lord, although, sadly, most in this sect would think so. I also dont know one family, that practices this, that is NOT on some sort of government assistance– be it medical or otherwise. When we were doing this, my husband worked a retail job and I didnt work and we collected foodstamps because feeding 6 people 3 squares, plus snacks is VERY expensive. Plus one of the kiddos had a very expensive special diet for a while. NO WAY could we have paid for that out of pocket.

We may have more children in the future, but right now, it wouldnt be a good idea. The things we would need in order to accomodate one more person in this family are way beyond the means that we have. We would need a new van– we currently have a 7 seater, BUT, carseats require lap and shoulder belts, which our van doesnt have on the 7th seat. We would need a bigger house because the one we have now is not big enough to contain us NOW!

We realized that we needed to seriously be responsible for raising these kids, not just pop them out and expect the taxpayers to handle all the hard parts.

Often, we are refuted for having ‘no faith’ that God will provide for us. If He sends us the kids, He will send us the grace to raise them. The guilt involved in this movement can be direct and can be subtle and some of these people can get downright mean about it.

Ultimately, its nobody’s decision OR business but mine and my husband’s. And again, we feel no conviction from the Lord that we should be doing anything other than what we are doing now. Before, it was a fear of what other people might think. Not a fear of the Lord.

Amanda