Ex-Quiverfull

Bruce Gerencser has written an honest account of what it was like to be that happy man with a full quiver, both theologically and practically. I feel glad and hopeful when I think of how he and Polly reconsidered their religious convictions to protect her body.

For a time, we felt guilty. We thought, we are disobeying God. Where is our faith?

In the end, in spite of our theological beliefs, we put our faith and trust, not in God, but in doctors. As we look back on it now, perhaps this was the first small crack in our Evangelical Calvinistic worldview.

We now see how foolish we were and how dangerous certain beliefs were.

We are blessed to have six wonderful children. We love all of them dearly. But, if we had to do it all over again, knowing what we know now, I doubt we would have had six children. Health and economics should have been the criteria we used to determine whether or not to have children. Instead, we let the folly of youth and our religious beliefs determine what size of family we wanted to have. We are fortunate things turned out as well as they did. I can only imagine how life might had been if Polly had died having child seven or ten. I am grateful that the wife of my youth is alive and we are able to enjoy together the latter years of life.

You can read Bruce's entire piece at No Longer Quivering.