Growing Up Duggar: It's All About Relationships

by Duggar, Jill

  The doctor had confirmed that there was no heartbeat, shared what comfort she could as a longtime family friend, and told them that Mom would probably go into labor sometime soon and deliver the stillborn baby.

  As Christians, we believe that God can use everything that happens to us—even the hardest heartache—for good (see Romans 8:28), and in faith we thank God “in every thing” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). So we weren’t at all surprised to have Dad tell us that one of the first things he and Mom did after hearing this devastating news was to pray together, thanking God for the weeks they had had with the baby as they happily anticipated the joy they would feel when they held the little one in their arms. They thanked Him for their unshakable faith that they would see that child someday in heaven. And then they asked the Lord for peace and for the strength they would need to go home and share the hard news with their other children.

  Mom and Dad told us it’s natural to weep and we shouldn’t be ashamed of our tears. We all feel great sadness when we lose a loved one. They reminded us that we don’t weep “as others which have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13) because we know that one day we will see our sister in heaven. But we sadly miss her now.

  A few days later Mom went into labor, and little Jubilee Shalom Duggar was born. Her name means “joyful celebration of peace.” She had beautiful blue eyes, and a very cute little Duggar nose. She looked perfect in every way.

  Our family held a memorial service for Jubilee a few days later, with close friends and family in attendance.

  When Mama had announced she was pregnant with her twentieth child (actually it was her twenty-first, including a prior miscarriage more than twenty years ago), the news was reported in newspapers, magazines, and newscasts around the world. Now the headlines around the world reported Jubilee’s passing, along with statements from our parents confirming that our little sister was loved. She was worth naming, worth having a memorial service for, and she would be missed.

  In the months since then we have seen how God used Jubilee’s short life and our big family’s love-filled reaction to her death to remind people of the true value of life, born and unborn. We’ve also seen the value, again, of being a family of close relationships. When we go through challenging times of difficulty and change, God wants us to turn to Him and realize just how much we need Him. Our parents guided us through our grief over Jubilee’s death in ways that helped us see that God is in control no matter what happens. Through the whole birth, burial, and grieving process, God drew us closer to Himself—and to each other. Those are just a few of the many ways God brought something good from what seemed to be a tragedy. Through Jubilee’s passing, we have gained a greater appreciation for each sibling. The experience encouraged us to love each other even more, underscored our belief in the value of each life, and challenged us to take every opportunity to invest ourselves in each other, realizing we may not have tomorrow.

  We grieved together when our baby sister, Jubilee Shalom, was stillborn, but we rejoice to know that, as Christians, we’ll see her again someday in heaven. The display during her funeral, shown here, says, “There is no footprint too small that it cannot leave an imprint on this world.”

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  YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH FRIENDS

  “Show me your friends, and I’ll show you your future”

  A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.

  —Proverbs 18:24

  WE NEVER KNOW WHEN God is going to bring a new friend into our lives. One beautiful April morning as we were traveling to Big Sandy, Texas, to attend the annual Advanced Training Institute Family Conference, we had a tire blowout on the trailer we were pulling behind the RV. The trailer was packed with all the supplies we needed for a week of camping and attending the conference.

  Dad and the boys were able to change the flat tire, but after examining some of the other tires, they decided we should probably go to a tire shop and buy a new spare. That meant going out of our way to find a tire store—a disappointment because we were all very eager to get to Big Sandy and meet up with friends we hadn’t seen since the last conference.

  We ended up in a tire shop owned by a very sweet family that was also heading to the same homeschool conference later that day! What we first viewed as a setback turned out to be a huge blessing as we made some “accidental” new friends. We know now that God was orchestrating the whole thing.

  The experience reinforced something Mom has taught us all our lives: that we are to thank God in everything He brings into our lives because we never know when a blessing, like a family of new friends, is waiting for us right around the bend—or in a small-town tire shop!

  POINTING YOUR FRIENDS TO GOD

  THE VERY BEST WAY to be a friend is to point your friends to Jesus. One powerful way we do this is by sharing testimonies of how God has worked in our own lives, just as our parents and Christian friends have shared their stories with us (see also Revelation 12:11). These stories help us understand how God can use any of us and anything—even our mistakes—to help others find their way to Him.

  For example, Mom and Dad told us about a girl they knew—we’ll call her Marie. Marie was fifteen and had a sweet personality and winsome ways that made her one of the most popular girls in her high school. Thin and beautiful, she was a girl every guy probably wished he could date.

  But Mom told us those characteristics were all just outward appearances. Inside her heart, Marie battled intense insecurity, destructive thoughts and emotions, and a longing for “real” happiness. Somehow, the more popular she became, the stronger her desire for everyone’s approval grew. And when she looked in the mirror, she didn’t like what she saw—not her outward appearance or the inner feelings she wrestled with.

  She was an active member of the gymnastics team, a key member of the cheerleading squad, and her classmates chose her as a homecoming attendant. But her discontentment with herself wouldn’t go away. She constantly compared herself to others and was convinced she didn’t measure up.

  On the outside, Marie had what everyone else wanted, but on the inside, she felt sad and empty. She began to envy the girls who were thinner than she was, and she started believing that she would be happy if only she could be as thin as they were.

  She heard about another girl who tried to control her weight through what turned out to be a destructive eating disorder. Not realizing how dangerous it was, Marie thought it might work for her, and soon her obsession to stay thin started controlling her life.

  Meanwhile, Marie was consumed with comparing herself with others and constantly worrying about what they thought of her.

  Then one night a girlfriend invited her to spend the night, and that friend shared with her a movie that portrayed the end of the world. The movie terrified Marie. When it finally ended, Marie told her friend how scared she felt about what would happen to her when she died. Marie’s family didn’t go to church, and she had never read the Bible.

  Her friend told her that Christians don’t have to be afraid of death or of the world ending, because they believe what the Bible says and they know they have the promise of eternal life in heaven.

  Marie was amazed by her friend’s fearless confidence. She didn’t know what her friend was talking about, but she was very curious—and she wanted the same confidence she saw in her friend. So when the friend invited Marie to go to church with her the next night for a special revival service, Marie eagerly accepted.

  During the church service, the preacher shared how God loves everyone, but that each person, individually, has violated His commandments. (At some point in our lives, we’ve all told a lie, taken something that’s not ours, had lustful thoughts, etc.) He went on to explain that that is the reason God sent His Son, Jesus, to earth—to pay the penalty for our sins. Jesus was sinless, yet He took the punishment for what we have done wrong when He was executed on the cross.

  Then the preacher went on to share that if we, in fai
th, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and ask God the Father to forgive us for our sins as we turn from sin and give God the “steering wheel” of our life, He will come into our lives, guide us, give us peace, and take us to heaven when we die.

  At the end of the service, the minister invited anyone who wanted to know more to come forward to speak with him. Marie popped out of her seat without an instant’s hesitation and hurried to the front of the church. She talked with the pastor, and right then and there, she asked God to forgive her sins and committed herself to following God’s plan for her life.

  Marie joined an after-school club called Youth for Christ and started attending church occasionally. She got a job working at a yogurt shop and ended up falling in love with the shop manager’s son. Not only did she enjoy his sense of humor and appreciate his thoughtful manners, but she was especially impressed by the young man’s character and his love for the Lord. She’d never met anyone who had such a passion to seek after God. She found that passion contagious.

  As they talked, Marie began to open up and eventually told the guy about her eating disorder. They prayed together frequently, and the two of them became accountability partners. With God’s help, over the next few months Marie overcame her devastating eating issues.

  She and the shop manager’s son were married a few weeks after she graduated from high school; she was seventeen, and he was nineteen. They went on to have a houseful of children—nineteen, in fact, including four daughters they named Jana, Jill, Jessa, and Jinger . . .

  The girl in the story was not actually named Marie, but Michelle. Now, Michelle Duggar. We call her Mom. And the boy she fell in love with? We call him Dad. Mom’s story teaches us so many lessons. First, it shows how God can use anything and anyone to change another person’s life for the better—something as “frivolous” as a high school student’s overnight stay at a girlfriend’s house or as unlikely as a teenage boy’s boldness to talk about spiritual principles found in the Bible.

  Mom and Dad’s first date, in May 1983. They dressed up for Dad’s high school banquet.

  It also shows how God can work through hard times and difficult circumstances to draw a person closer to Himself and bring about a change in his or her life. Mom’s teenage struggle for self-acceptance led her into some difficult emotional times and a very destructive habit that could have destroyed her health. But when her heart was opened to the gospel message and she received the truth that God loves us and that He wants to forgive us and offer us eternal life in heaven, then she was able—with God’s help and through strong accountability—to move away from the wrong choices she had made in her past.

  Another lesson we’ve learned from Mom’s story and from our own experience is the powerful influence one friend can be in another’s life—for good or for bad. We think about the negative impact of Jessa’s friend (in the chapter on “Your Relationship with Yourself”) who was so focused on outward appearances and compare it to the life-changing impact Mom’s teenage girlfriend had on Mom’s life when they talked about life after death, and then when that friend invited Mom to church. That’s the kind of impact we hope to have with our friends—wherever and however God chooses to use us.

  LEARNING ABOUT BEING JUDGMENTAL

  AND THAT LEADS US to one more story we hope will help you understand what it means to “grow up Duggar.” It’s about something that happened a while ago as most of our family was in a van headed to the store. As we passed a girl walking down the sidewalk, one of the little boys yelled, “Don’t look! That girl’s not dressed right!”

  The girl was probably an older teenager, and she was wearing a short-short skirt and a rather low-cut top. Our little brother’s tone was admittedly judgmental as he added, “That’s really bad!”

  Our family’s tradition is that if we’re walking down the street as a group and someone dressed inappropriately is coming toward us, one of us will quietly say, “Nike.” That’s a signal to the boys, and even to Dad, that they should nonchalantly drop their eyes and look down at their shoes as we walk past her. It’s meant to help keep the guys’ eyes from seeing things they shouldn’t be seeing. By using the single-word signal, the warning can be given quietly and discreetly. We sure don’t want to be judgmental of others.

  But on this day as we drove by the girl on the sidewalk, our little brother shared his opinion in a style all his own. In response, Mom issued a gentle but unforgettable reminder. “Be very careful how you talk about others,” she said. “I used to run around dressed worse than that.”

  The vanload of kids was quiet for a moment as Mom’s words sank in. Then she added, “Not long ago, that was your mama.”

  And besides, she said, not everybody has the same standards.

  Mom reminded us that when she was growing up, totally clueless about modesty, she used to mow her yard in a bikini—and she wondered why the neighbor lady didn’t really like her (of course, the lady wanted to protect her husband and son from seeing the lawn girl)!

  Some girls have a low self-worth, and they may think the only way they can attract a guy is to dress in a sensual way. But Mom says she was just naïve and no one had taken the time to explain to her what modesty meant. Back then she had no clue how her skimpy clothing affected guys around her.

  It wasn’t until after she became a Christian that she started reevaluating how she dressed—and the other activities in her life as well, desiring to please God in every area. As a high school cheerleader dancing before a big crowd at a sporting event, she thought she was just getting everyone excited about the game. She had no idea that dancing around in a short skirt in front of a bunch of boys was causing many of them to think sensual thoughts about her and the other cheerleaders. When Mom began to understand this halfway through her senior year, she prayed about it and then decided to resign from the cheerleading squad. Since then she has always tried to dress modestly.

  A lot of people didn’t understand why she would choose to give up one of the most coveted positions in the high school, but that was where she felt God was leading her. She also used to go to school dances but stopped participating when God convicted her that dancing stirred up a lot of sensual desires in young men and women that could not be righteously fulfilled. These decisions were a huge step in the beginning of Mom’s journey of trusting God. And her Christian walk began simply because a friend reached out to her and pointed her to Jesus.

  BEING A FRIEND TO OTHERS

  MOM HAS ALWAYS MODELED how a positive outlook, a cheerful disposition, and a friendly approach impact whatever situation we’re in, whether something goes wrong when we’re at home or in a stressful situation out on the road somewhere. We’ve seen how other people are drawn to Mom as though pulled in by a magnet. It’s because of her constantly cheerful attitude and because she is always ready to give a friendly, encouraging word to everyone she meets. She has a genuine heart of gold. She has befriended many, many people around the world, and she daily models for us how a pleasant demeanor can be a blessing to everyone nearby.

  Daddy shares a story of another woman whose personality had that kind of impact on the people around her. The woman was Betty, a cashier at the grocery store where Dad worked when he was in high school. He noticed that Betty always had the longest line of any of the store clerks. It always seemed that Betty would have four or five people waiting in her line even when there was no one else in the other checkout lanes.

  At first Dad was puzzled—I wonder why all these people want her to check out their groceries? Then one day he figured it out. Betty genuinely loved and cared about others, and to her, the people in her checkout lane weren’t simply customers. They had become her friends. She made it a point to remember her customers’ names, and she would ask about their families and make a personal connection with each one of them, all while efficiently ringing up their groceries. Later, when they would come back through, she would remember something they had told her and ask how things were going. She didn’t spend time talking about her
own life or her problems but was always expressing interest in others.

  Because of her winsome personality, customers loved her and were willing to wait in her lane just for a chance to say hello and share the latest news about their family or to update Betty on some other topics. Dad realized she was an amazing lady, and during the years he worked there, he learned a lot by just observing her work and interact with others.

  We’ve seen this same lesson modeled by our parents again and again. And it’s true: the person who shows love the most is loved the most! By asking friends questions about themselves, their interests, and their backgrounds, we let them know we care about them. That’s the kind of friend everybody wants.

  Dad has told us about Dorothy Dix, a very popular advice columnist in her time who reportedly wrote, “There is nothing you can possibly say to an individual that would be half as interesting to him as the things he is dying to tell you about himself. And all you need, in order to get the reputation of being a fascinating companion, is to say: ‘How wonderful! Do tell me some more.’ ”

  Dad and Mom helped Johannah and Jackson at their Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation booth to collect donations for cancer research.

  When Dad meets a new person, let’s say it’s a man he’s sitting beside on an airplane, he will ask what kind of work he does, if he has children, where he lives, and where he grew up. And then Dad listens to the answers and responds in ways that say, “Tell me more!” He can carry on a ten-minute conversation simply by listening to answers to these questions. Then he will usually ask them questions about their church background, maybe starting with “Did you ever go to church anywhere growing up?”

  His hope is to be a spiritual encouragement to those he comes in contact with. Often he will share a scripture from the Bible or possibly some of our favorite resources that have helped our family, such as the website embassyinstitute.org.