Growing Up Duggar: It's All About Relationships

by Duggar, Jill

  Another bit of good news is that, as Christians, we’re assured that God will not allow into our lives more temptation than we can bear. First Corinthians 10:13 says, “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.”

  Even though sometimes it seems a temptation is just too strong for us, we can overcome it if we receive the grace God offers. Because “with men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). God will provide a way to escape temptations, and one way He does that is by providing parents or other trusted adults who understand what we’re going through and can provide insights, encouragement, and guidance.

  This is key when we’re struggling in any area of life because Satan’s power to keep us making the same mistakes is based in the secrecy of our sin. When secrets are brought to the light and we make ourselves accountable, it’s much easier to find victory. All things start in the mind and grow into actions, and there’s almost nothing our human mind won’t try to rationalize away. But God’s law is written on our hearts, and we still have a conscience that convicts us when we do wrong. It’s vital that we learn how to have victory over temptations because continuing down that wrong path will only lead to trouble and heartache.

  You may feel that right now your parents don’t understand you and your turbulent thoughts and feelings, but we urge you to give them a chance! Ask them for help; ask them for advice. Be honest and open with them about what’s on your mind and what you’re walking through.

  If you have already gone through a devastating trial from a past relationship or other wrong decisions, we want you to know that our Creator is a God of forgiveness and grace. If you turn from your sins, ask Him to forgive you, and commit your life to following Him, He will make you a new person and give you His desires, His dreams, and His goals for your life. Then guard your heart carefully against future intrusions of lust and instead fulfill your natural need for love and acceptance with the boundless love of God.

  Romans 13:14 says to “make not provisions for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof.” That means we’re to avoid (or stop) reading romance novels, teen magazines, and watching TV shows and movies that will stir up these sensual drives. Also, don’t put yourself in a situation where you’re alone with a guy, because bad things can happen. If you’re in a relationship right now with someone who does not have a spiritual focus, talk to him about the importance of centering your relationship on God and waiting on the physical components until marriage. If he’s not interested, ask God to help you let go.

  If you stick with someone who spiritually is like a dead horse, you will hinder God’s work in his life and your own. Grandma Duggar has always said, “Many girls think they can alter a guy at the marriage altar,” and then she adds, “very rarely does that work! If a guy is not a spiritual leader before you marry him, marrying him will not change him.”

  GUARDING YOUR HEART

  WHEN WE COMMIT OUR life to God, we’re saying, “Yes, God, I want You to guide me.” We give God the position as “boss” and “ruler” of our lives, and we release the “steering wheel” to His control. But there may be times when we begin to fear that if certain things are left up to Him, they won’t turn out the way we want them to. For instance, we may wonder, What would happen if I truly gave God control over my love life? And we may start to worry that He’ll call us to be single till we’re thirty! But when we hold something back, we’re really taking control of the “steering wheel” again and trying to find our own path. This will only do us harm.

  Shortly before Mom met Dad, she had a boyfriend who was a popular football player at her school. When she became a Christian at the age of fifteen and was so excited about the things of God, she tried to talk to this boyfriend about her newfound faith, but he didn’t want to hear it. Mom struggled with the thought of breaking up with this guy—until she went to see the school counselor, who was also a Christian.

  It wasn’t like Mom had been resisting God altogether, but this one area—her boyfriend—was something she was hanging on to. She says that when she gave her life to God, she opened the door to her heart and said, “God, I want You to come in and take control.” But as God began to convict her of different things in her life, it was as if she thought about her boyfriend and said, “I don’t want to give that up!”

  It was as though she built a little closet, put the boyfriend in there, and then said, “God, here’s this area of my life that I’m willing to give up for You: music, movies, and clothing styles.” But it felt as if God bypassed those things and went straight to that little closet and began to knock, asking, “Are you willing to give Me this?”

  The counselor asked Mom, “Michelle, are you trusting Jesus to take you to heaven when you die?”

  Mom responded, “Yes!”

  “Then don’t you think you can trust God with your love life?” he asked.

  Mom said she’d never thought of it that way. She realized that God was more concerned with her future than she could ever be and that if she could trust Him for salvation, she could surely trust Him with the guy she would marry. So she prayed and said, “God, if this is not Your will, please make it easy for me to let go.”

  And God did. That next week they broke up, and just a few weeks later, God brought Dad into Mom’s life.

  The Bible tells us, “Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life” (Proverbs 4:23). Guarding our hearts must be important if the Bible says our very life depends on it! So how do we guard our hearts? We begin by taking every dream and desire to the Lord in prayer and believing and trusting that His plan for our lives is best. His plan, carried out in His timing and His way, will bring us into the marriage He intends for us—if He intends marriage for us.

  While we wait for God to bring the man He intends for us to marry into our lives, we strive to harness that desire for marriage and use and direct those energies toward impacting the world for Him. The way we serve God is by ministering to and serving others.

  The Bible tells the stories of those who achieved great accomplishments for God during their youth. We can learn so much from them! For example, Daniel was taken captive as a young teen but counseled four kings and was made ruler of one of the largest empires of his time, all because he honored and served God in his youth.

  Visiting places like Honduras and sharing the gospel with villagers is a ministry opportunity our family greatly treasures.

  God used a young woman named Esther to save the entire Jewish nation.

  At age seventeen, Joseph was sold by his brothers into slavery, and yet God later used him powerfully to save Israel and Egypt from famine.

  God is able to use you to do great things for Him, too. Devote yourself to serving God, and even though you are young, He can use you to impact the world for Him.

  INVOLVING OUR PARENTS IN OUR LIFE-PARTNER DECISION

  DURING THESE YEARS AS single adults, we want to prepare for the time when God brings the man He intends for us to marry into our lives. This includes studying the Bible to gain principles and standards that will be foundational in our future marriages. It is also important to seek counsel from the ones who love us most (our parents and siblings) and get their advice on any guy we think might be a potential mate. They will be able to examine the guy more objectively than we can because they want what is best for us and will be able to identify character deficiencies that we might overlook. As the wise saying goes, guys can see through guys like girls can see through girls.

  Oftentimes, when a girl becomes emotionally attracted and attached to a guy, she begins to look at him through rose-colored glasses. But then once she’s married, out comes the microscope! The problems were probably there from the beginning, but she couldn’t see them because of her emotional attachment.

  If a guy catches our eye or shows some int
erest in one of us and we think he might have some potential, we probably would ask Dad or one of our older brothers what they think of him and get their advice. If it becomes clear this interest is mutual and growing, the guy is directed to talk to our dad, who then is able to go over certain things with the guy and determine his character and goals in life. He may want to know things like . . .

  • Is he a believer in Jesus? Does he know and love God?

  • Does he have a vision for his life of doing great things for God?

  • Is he free of all harmful addictions such as pornography, alcohol, drugs, immorality, etc.?

  • Is he given to anger, lust, bitterness, greed, or envy?

  • Is he wise with his finances?

  • Does he love children? (The answer to this one is probably apparent as soon as he steps foot on Duggar property!)

  • Is he a man of character, showing initiative, creativity, diligence, enthusiasm, and wisdom?

  • Are both sets of parents giving their full and unreserved permission and blessing for their children to pursue this relationship?

  • Does he have similar convictions and standards to ours? (How long has he had them? Some lifestyle choices are just opinions and flexible; others are nonnegotiable.)

  • Has he been married or in a relationship before? (If he has made a marriage vow to another woman, he needs to keep that vow!)

  • Is his passion in life for earthly money or for eternal riches and rewards?

  • Does he accept me just the way I am?

  • Could I say he loves God more than he loves me? Will he draw me closer to God?

  • Does he love me?

  If a young man comes to visit our family, he might just be invited to join in a game of Monopoly—one of our favorite games.

  If Mom and Dad agree that the young man has a heart for the Lord and a potential as a future spouse, then we will invite him to visit our family so we can get to know each other in our normal life (group) setting. And we’ll also hope to visit him in his family setting as well.

  UNDERSTANDING HOW COURTSHIP DIFFERS FROM DATING

  THERE ARE SOME VERY real and very purposeful differences between courtship and dating—and we believe the principles of courtship result in wise and safe choices.

  1. Real-Life Settings

  Getting to know the special young man we’re interested in within a family setting is one of the biggest differences in dating and courtship. A danger of modern dating is that it is typically two young people, alone, enjoying an activity. Usually a guy invites a girl out to a nice restaurant or some fun place or event. They enjoy a carefree time without the responsibility of the normal tasks and pressures of life. For instance, if a guy invites you to have dinner at a restaurant, someone else makes your food exactly to your liking and then clears your dishes for you while the guy looks deep into your eyes and says whatever nice things he thinks you want to hear.

  Now, all of us would surely enjoy a few romantic dinners later on, but first we want to get acquainted with our young man in a normal family setting, where we’ll be watching to see how he treats our brothers and sisters. We want to see how he reacts to normal family events, such as Josie accidentally spilling her milk in his lap, Jackson unintentionally ruining his board game, or Joseph trouncing him in a basketball match. We need to know how he handles frequent interruptions such as Jennifer and Johannah racing through the room on scooters, intruding on his conversation. We want to see how he interacts with the other kids if we have to excuse ourselves momentarily to help Mom or Dad with something.

  It’s pretty easy for a young man to put on a show of good conduct during a romantic, one-on-one date. We want to know if he’s willing to work hard and build a solid relationship amid real-life scenarios.

  And here’s another biggie: how a man treats his parents and siblings (as well as our own) shows us how he is likely to treat his own future family. You simply won’t see that by spending time alone with him.

  We saw a good example of how family interaction can reveal someone’s character a few years ago when we were traveling out east and some friends invited us to their house for a big gathering. That afternoon, a young man and his younger sister joined a few of us in a game of volleyball. As we were playing, the guy’s sister went for the ball, but she slipped in the sand court and instead of hitting it over the net she caused it to bounce out of bounds. The young man said some demeaning things to his little sister, and a while later he actually threw a ball at her, just being mean and frustrated.

  A “real-life” setting for our family might include our whole family having an adventure in a speedboat.

  All of us Duggar girls took note of how he treated his sister. And to be honest, we were shocked. Dad saw what happened, and he cautioned the young man, “If you treat your sister that way today, you may well treat your wife that way someday in the future.”

  The guy simply laughed off Dad’s warning by joking, “Well, my wife will just have to learn to get out of my way.”

  The guy evidently didn’t learn anything from what happened that day. But we sure did!

  2. Accountability

  Another difference between dating and courtship is accountability. When you’re alone with a guy in a dating situation, with no one else around to hold you accountable, it’s easy to put yourself into physical and moral danger and give in to those emotions or sensual thoughts that promise pleasant, but only temporary, fulfillment. Please don’t put yourself in this situation!

  Here are some cautions to think about before putting yourself in a situation where you are alone with a guy:

  First, if a guy cannot control himself with you before he is married, how are you going to trust him around other women after you marry him?

  Second, once you open the door to being alone and enter into a physical relationship before marriage (kissing, touching, physical intimacy), you are allowing your partner to unwrap a precious, special gift that God intended you to hold on to until your wedding day, and you’re also creating a lot of guilt and distrust, and you won’t be able to fully enjoy the pleasure of the sin because of all the guilt it brings.

  Third, an analogy Dad uses is that, as young children, he told us not to go near or play in the street, not because he wanted to take away our fun, but because he didn’t want us to get hit by one of the many semi-trucks that drive past our house. In the same way, God has created physical intimacy to be a wonderful wedding gift for pleasure and bonding and to procreate children, but if it is done prematurely or with multiple partners, the very thing that was created to bring joy can bring sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV, herpes, and human papillomavirus (HPV), which can cause infertility, cervical cancer, and a life sentence of pain and suffering.

  HPV is just one of many sexually transmitted viruses, but it has recently become a notorious killer of women. According to the National Cancer Institute, “Virtually all cervical cancers are caused by HPV infections.” The American Cancer Society estimates that 4,030 women will die from cervical cancer this year. STDs like HPV also carry a high risk of being passed on to loved ones, including the woman’s husband or her children.

  What could be worse than having to tell your potential future husband that not only did you not wait but that you also have a severely painful STD that he will likely get if he marries you?

  Physical intimacy in marriage is pure, wholesome, and beautiful. Outside of marriage, it spreads disease, death, and destruction. Just as Dad gave us kids boundaries to protect us from playing in the street, God gives boundaries as well. He wants to protect us from these hazards, and He will give us an abundant marriage if we do things in the order and timing He prescribes.

  Fourth, a baby is a blessing no matter how it is conceived, but it is a lot more difficult to raise a child as a single mom. A huge percentage of the guys who have gotten a girl pregnant do not take responsibility for the child or want to have anything to do with the girl once she is pregnant.

  If a guy
is pressuring you to have a physical relationship with him and telling you, “If you loved me you would do this,” tell him if he truly loves you he will wait until your wedding day and not steal your purity.

  If you have already crossed that line, ask God to forgive you and then recommit yourself to staying pure from this point on until you get married. Several women in the Bible made major moral mistakes in their pasts, but they repented (that means changed their ways) and God used them in a mighty way in the future. Many times, Jesus said those who have been forgiven much love God and others in a deeper way because they are so thankful for all the forgiveness they have received.

  If you are already pregnant, scared, and don’t know what to do, don’t allow anyone to talk you into taking the life of your child. Your baby is not a blob of tissue! Have you ever seen an ultrasound? About the time you realize you missed your cycle and wonder if you’re pregnant, your baby’s heart has already started beating, its eye and hair color are already determined, and its brain has already formed. It’s a baby from the time it is conceived.

  Even though this is happening out of God’s designed order, He loves you both and will forgive you. Look online for a Christian crisis pregnancy center in your area, and the staff and volunteers there will assist you in this new phase of life. Don’t ever consider getting an abortion, with a surgical procedure or with the abortion pill.

  Abortion might seem like a quick fix to a big problem, but we personally know several women who have done this, and they have said they regret ending the life of their baby; it haunts them every day. You cannot get unpregnant. If you are pregnant, take responsibility and take care of yourself and your baby, and God will take care of you.