Learning to Love NFP with Simcha Fisher

The Sinner's Guide to Natural Family Planning by Simcha Fisher

I feel like I just had a three-hour coffee date with Simcha Fisher. Ensconced in cozy armchairs and sipping bottomless mochas, we talked about marriage, babies, discerning God’s will, the temptation to judge others, and the cosmic joke of sexuality. Actually, Simcha just talked because she’s so smart and wise, and I just listened and laughed. And our hair looked fabulous.

In reality, I did not have a coffee date with Simcha because we have over a dozen kids combined and neither one of us would have made it out the front door. And because she doesn’t know me. But I did have the great pleasure of reading her new book, The Sinner’s Guide to Natural Family Planning.

The Sinner’s Guide treats of the often-untalked about trials and frustrations that come with the self-sacrificial love required to practice NFP and how to overcome these. Simcha relates that she and her husband struggled for years to live with and implement NFP successfully in their marriage before they were able to enjoy its benefits, and this book is the fruit of that wisdom. Covering everything from the Church’s teaching on sex to discerning God’s will when spacing pregnancies, the temptation to judge others on how many or how few children they have to the sheer awkwardness that can arise from being a married human being, this book is really for any married Catholic.

Even if NFP has been going smoothly for you, this book is a treasure because it offers lots of topics of discussion for spouses to aid in their mission to grow ever closer to each other and to God. And it's also a must-read if you haven't laughed in a while...like, since you brought your first-born home from the hospital twelve years ago. Simcha has such a great way of showing how we ought to approach even the weightier things of life as children of God: with love and trust and humor. Because as much as being a spouse, parent, and Christian can be difficult and at times totally frustrating, it can also be pretty darn funny.