Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - January 25, 2023


Ep 745 ｜ Life as a Duggar & Letting Go of Legalism ｜ Guest： Jinger Duggar Vuolo


Episode Stats

Length

43 minutes

Words per Minute

180.03676

Word Count

7,837

Sentence Count

3

Misogynist Sentences

4

Hate Speech Sentences

3


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 you know ginger volo from reality tv she is a daughter of the duggars the tlc show 19 kids
00:00:09.580 and counting and she is here today to talk about her new book becoming free indeed which is about
00:00:14.860 disentangling herself her faith from the principles that she grew up being taught whether
00:00:24.740 it was extremely strict modesty or different forms of legalism that caused her to live her life
00:00:33.340 in constant fear as an adolescent she is talking about how the holy spirit has sanctified her
00:00:39.120 and used different experiences conversations people in her life to show her what the true
00:00:44.380 and liberating gospel is you are absolutely going to love this conversation really interesting really
00:00:51.180 encouraging this episode is brought to you by our friends at good ranchers go to good ranchers.com
00:00:55.500 use promo code ally at checkout good ranchers.com code ally
00:00:59.680 ginger thank you so much for joining us i'm so excited to have you um we're going to talk about
00:01:14.520 your new book becoming free indeed um so just tell us before we get into all of it just give us a
00:01:20.540 little summary what is this book about why did you write it yeah thanks for having me ali um i'm so
00:01:26.740 glad to be with you uh yeah so becoming free indeed is the story of my faith journey i grew up grew up
00:01:35.120 under some harmful teaching that threatened to leave me fearful and confused about who jesus is
00:01:42.080 and it this is the story of how i've had to disentangle faith from fear yeah and you're the
00:01:51.260 dedications as to those who have been hurt by the teachings of bill gothard i think that's how you
00:01:55.840 pronounce his last name or any religious leader who claimed to speak for a god but did it i don't i
00:02:01.880 don't know who bill gothard is i'm sure a lot of my audience does but a lot probably don't can you
00:02:05.900 just tell us what you mean by that yeah bill gothard came on the scene in the 1960s and 70s
00:02:13.400 whenever um sex drugs and rock and roll were um a big concern for parents yeah and he came on the
00:02:22.000 scene saying that he had the answers to life's problems and he came on saying that if parents
00:02:30.140 followed these principles that he would lay out that their life would be a success and god would
00:02:37.360 bless their life but if they didn't then their life would be one disaster after another so oh god
00:02:44.620 yeah so he set up all of these guidelines that he thought would keep kids from getting into sin
00:02:52.080 and parents were looking for answers and thought well of course everybody wants a black and white
00:02:57.800 answer of what that looks like so he started hosting seminars that filled stadiums across the
00:03:04.160 country and many people came from all different backgrounds and fill up those stadiums and then
00:03:10.060 he started after that many conferences and programs for kids people from all different countries would
00:03:17.140 come in to attend and what were some of the rules or principles that he told parents you have to
00:03:24.940 abide by these if you want your kid to grow up to you know be on the straight and narrow
00:03:29.700 i think some of the more outward stuff i mean a lot of it most all of it was outward but it would be
00:03:39.380 like if you go into debt at all for any reason that god's going to bring destruction on you if you
00:03:45.400 listen to drums and music wow then god will well he would tell crazy stories about like like a young man
00:03:53.380 who listened to music with drums and was killed in the car accident because he had that on
00:03:57.580 um and he would talk about modesty in a way that was outside of the bible and he would put on
00:04:06.960 restrictions and specifics of what you had to wear and couldn't wear um and so those types of things
00:04:14.780 is what he based his teaching on yeah and here are some of the things that you listed which you just
00:04:21.580 said but putting it in your words in the book um fastidiously obeying the modesty guideline so
00:04:27.320 again not just modesty but no shorts or jeans only dresses eagerly submitting to the umbrella of
00:04:34.280 authority any disobedience of parents would place her outside of god's protection promoting the
00:04:40.100 relationship standard of courtship avoiding any music with a worldly beat among others so it's not like
00:04:45.600 these were just hey you know these are suggestions that kind of worked in my own life but this was
00:04:50.120 basically if you don't follow these things you are going to fall out of the favor of god and your
00:04:54.940 life will be in turmoil right right exactly and i think that that type of teaching it was so based on
00:05:02.600 fear superstition superstition manipulation and control so as a kid growing up in that it was
00:05:09.560 interesting i really thought that god was either pleased with me because of what i did um if i followed
00:05:16.260 all the guidelines and if i didn't i really thought that god was just out to get me even as a believer
00:05:21.920 once i was saved at the age of 14 i knew the true gospel was not by salvation by works but the way that
00:05:30.400 played out um bill gothard multiple times would give a scenario and say well before you come to christ
00:05:36.860 do xyz and it was totally wrong but i never said that salvation was by works but i viewed god
00:05:45.520 in that way like he's either pleased with me or not pleased with me based on and a secondary issue like
00:05:52.740 a standard that this man set up yeah and i know that you say in the beginning that this is not a book
00:06:00.420 and it's not it truly isn't a book about um you know uh slamming your family or trying to say that
00:06:07.520 you don't love your family or your parents didn't do a good job but i am curious like okay you didn't
00:06:12.620 pick up a gothard book so like how did this teaching kind of infiltrate your life what did that look like
00:06:19.280 growing up my parents um got into bill gothard they were introduced to it as a young couple
00:06:27.420 and i think since this was all i knew um this is how i viewed the world around me was
00:06:34.540 i thought other people outside of gothard circle just didn't know the truth they didn't have the
00:06:40.520 handle on truth and their life wasn't going to be blessed because of it so i was like you're just
00:06:44.540 waiting for disaster to strike in their life because they're outside of this and so i would have pity for
00:06:50.360 anyone who had not been exposed to his teachings so you knew his name growing up it wasn't just that
00:06:56.840 your parents were saying okay this is what modesty looks like etc you knew they talked about bill
00:07:03.640 gothard yes so i i wasn't um i guess in the younger years i kind of just we would take in all these
00:07:12.300 teachings and so it was often what we would watch for church because we were in a home church um
00:07:17.660 and that was a whole nother side so my parents wanted to give us the best life which is what i said
00:07:23.560 this story is my story of how the lord has led me to where i am theologically out of that um harmful
00:07:31.100 theology but my parents did teach me the gospel they shared with me about salvation um not being by works
00:07:39.640 and even though it was more like decision-based you pray a prayer and you're saved they still
00:07:45.680 really sought to point us kids to the true gospel of jesus christ and so i'm so grateful for that to
00:07:53.760 this day and at the same time i would say the theology of that and being in a place where we
00:07:59.300 thought okay well we have to start a home church because no one is believing the exact same things we
00:08:04.280 do in every place so we can't go to a normal church so-called normal um we need to start our own
00:08:11.840 so we would watch a lot of bill gothard's seminars um he has like 60 plus hours of these specific
00:08:17.940 seminars to like learn his teachings we would watch those a lot of sundays for our um sermon
00:08:24.480 and so that is the teaching i grew up under i would go to his conferences his seminars his girls retreats
00:08:33.340 all of that i attended so i knew very well where the teachings came from and i knew bill gothard
00:08:40.040 personally as well and i want to get more into that but i also want to get into some of the chapters
00:08:45.800 that you talked about because you really do back up and give some context about it's not really just
00:08:51.220 about gothard's teachings it's also about kind of growing up in front of the camera and how all of
00:08:56.000 that kind of led you to where you are now your first chapter talks about um kind of being in a fishbowl
00:09:03.020 and the story which i did not know that someone stole your diary when you were little from your
00:09:09.800 house tried to sell it for a hundred thousand dollars i just can't imagine as like a little
00:09:14.600 girl i mean i'm sure there was nothing really but like you know you're writing in a way that you feel
00:09:20.100 like it's very vulnerable i think when you're little and someone steals that and threatens to
00:09:25.100 make it public i mean tell us a little bit more about that
00:09:28.520 yeah being in such a public place is interesting um for an adult but then even more so for kids
00:09:38.380 because that's all i knew i grew up on tv my family had a tv show reality tv show um from the age of 10
00:09:45.880 um all the way up until just a couple years ago ended so most of my life was spent on tv and
00:09:52.260 that um it definitely shaped the way i viewed people too because i think whenever my diary was
00:10:01.540 stolen um from my room somebody had visited our family and taken it i share more about this in the
00:10:08.840 book it was crazy like it disappeared from my nightstand so they went into my nightstand and took
00:10:13.980 it wow and that really made me think oh maybe not everyone's has my best interests in mind and i we
00:10:23.120 had so graciously welcomed this guest into our home for all day um and it really was interesting because
00:10:30.900 i thought why would somebody do that like i thought that people were nice and um but being in the public
00:10:37.320 like that it definitely made me more guarded and i thought now i feel like i can't trust a lot of
00:10:44.360 people um and so that was definitely a challenge as a young kid yeah and so that was actually my
00:10:53.440 mistake that was actually in chapter two but it does kind of all fall under the same thing like you
00:10:58.000 are being so publicly scrutinized how um how old were you when um i think it started was it did it
00:11:05.540 start as 19 kids and counting so it started with a couple of um pilot like documentaries 14 kids
00:11:13.380 and pregnant again um that's how it started and then that was when i was 10 so a couple documentaries
00:11:19.860 the reality show started later um but still all of those years we were on tv and so um and also
00:11:29.140 another side fact we didn't watch tv we didn't have tv in the home so yeah like we were on tv
00:11:35.280 but we didn't really know like what it was what people were seeing so you you know you're videoing
00:11:41.780 you know you're giving this footage but it wasn't until years later where my mom couldn't go through
00:11:47.200 the store without getting stopped at every turn and just basically like she would sometimes say how
00:11:52.700 about you guys go into the store get the groceries because she knew it would take her an hour or an hour
00:11:57.700 and a half to get through because people would be stopping her stopping her and that was at the height of
00:12:02.340 the show for sure but we started realizing okay this is this is not just um this footage is going out and
00:12:11.960 then it's coming back and we're like oh no one really sees it like we didn't even know the scope
00:12:15.960 were you surprised when you were 10 or a little older than that i guess when it kind of became big
00:12:36.040 that your parents decided to be a part of a television series just given that you guys didn't
00:12:42.400 watch tv yeah it definitely was something that i remember we prayed about as a family um and we
00:12:52.000 didn't know what reality tv was like i said we watch tv so we had a certain level of understanding being in
00:12:59.080 the public space because my dad was in politics he served two terms in um the house and so we were
00:13:06.840 used to that life in a sense like going out in the arkansas state house right yes so we were um at
00:13:13.660 the capitol all the time there were reporters there as there always are just for political stuff and
00:13:19.640 they would sometimes take pictures but it was on such a smaller scale so whenever my parents prayed
00:13:25.740 about that they said they wanted to share this message with the world that children are a blessing
00:13:30.840 from god and um so that's why they decided to start the show was as a ministry at that point
00:13:38.140 gotcha and then i'm sure that they didn't even have the vision to see how much it would grow and kind of
00:13:47.440 the position that it would put you know a lot of their kids in and just kind of being scrutinized
00:13:51.920 having your diary potentially sold on ebay and you talk about how in the second chapter i guess the
00:13:58.560 combination of kind of feeling like you're in a fishbowl and then also a lot of the principles
00:14:02.840 that you had been raised with this kind of legalistic if you don't do this this bad thing
00:14:07.380 will happen to you created just like a spirit of fear in you that's how you characterize yourself
00:14:13.200 primarily it's just a fearful young girl so tell us a little bit more about that yeah walking through
00:14:19.880 my younger years i remember 10 11 12 i struggled so much with fear to the point where
00:14:28.220 i would get up so many times in the middle of the night and i would go to my parents room
00:14:32.480 and they were always so gracious to um spend time talking with me even if it was in the middle of the
00:14:39.000 night and seeking to pray with me point me to god's word i just didn't know where those fears were
00:14:45.680 coming from and what they were based in why they wouldn't go away and that was before i was genuinely
00:14:51.500 a believer i prayed a prayer at the age of six with my sister who had just committed her life to jesus
00:14:57.380 she just prayed a prayer so i just did the same thing and yeah i didn't even think about that
00:15:03.880 um throughout the coming years until i was faced with all of this fear and then it kind of was it
00:15:11.200 just shook me because i thought why am i so fearful if i'm if i already prayed that prayer i shouldn't be
00:15:17.840 scared what were you fearful of just kind of everything i'm fearful of everything around me
00:15:24.060 and my view of god i think at that point was one based on um stepping outside of the box like if i
00:15:31.460 step outside of this box god's gonna he's gonna take his hand off of me or smite me yeah i can't
00:15:36.660 outside of this box of authority at all or i'm opening myself up to the devil's attacks so i viewed life
00:15:43.380 like that and it wasn't until the age of 14 where i was genuinely converted and i remember very well
00:15:50.620 talking to my mom again for like all those months leading up to it i had talked to her but at that
00:15:57.700 point the lord opened my eyes to show me that i can't perform and i can't continue to try to please
00:16:04.680 god by my good works and so i was so broken i i was like a good kid in a sense like i didn't get in
00:16:10.980 trouble a lot i didn't push you know any boundaries um the lord just exposed to me my heart and i've
00:16:19.420 been trying to like read the bible trying to do all these things but i had no heart for it i i didn't
00:16:24.180 love god so the lord changed my heart at that age and then those years following my love for god grew
00:16:31.440 and my fear of death vanished but what happened was my perspective on why those fears were there
00:16:41.660 um fears of like okay should not should i now stay at home and read my bible yeah and go out to play
00:16:49.120 sport with my siblings even though i already read my bible for like an hour that morning i would start
00:16:54.060 to become terrified thinking i don't know what god expects of me i want to honor you god but what do you
00:17:00.560 expect of me why can't i figure this out so i remember multiple times because of the umbrella
00:17:07.460 of authority bill gother would teach like you have to stay under your parents authority they are
00:17:11.820 basically like i guess you'd say almost like a priest right like they're you go to them to confess
00:17:17.160 every little sin every little detail of your sin um and then god will forgive you so interesting um
00:17:24.620 i i kind of had this perspective of like okay well if i think i'm supposed to stay home and read my
00:17:29.920 bible if i think i'm supposed to fast today which would come up like often i kept thinking i don't
00:17:35.700 know god what do you want what do you want i would go to my mom and dad and say like they they noticed
00:17:40.740 like why aren't you going to broomball it was my favorite sport and i finally told him i was like i
00:17:45.080 don't i think i might be supposed to stay home and read my bible like i don't know what to do my dad
00:17:50.480 would pause and he said no i want you to come with us that totally took away that fear because i thought
00:17:56.320 now i'm obeying my authority so god's going to protect me i'm not going to die in a car accident
00:18:01.540 on the way there because i'm um my dad gave me permission so it was that type of fear that really
00:18:08.780 um kept my heart in a place that wasn't good because i really genuinely as a believer wanted to
00:18:17.420 know the word of god love the word of god please god in everything and yet i had an unhealthy view
00:18:25.940 of who god was yeah and you also talk about um an eating disorder and just like hearing kind of your
00:18:36.100 mentality one i can like i can really relate to it in so many in so many ways like growing up in the
00:18:43.000 church i didn't have the same kind of principles taught to me and things like that but just as a
00:18:47.300 young person trying to like navigate the will of god and am i really saved and was that prayer that
00:18:51.440 i prayed seven times when i was eight years old like did that really count like i totally get all of
00:18:55.840 that but it's also making me wonder if that kind of like mentality is kind of what exacerbates or
00:19:03.720 enables things like eating disorders i also struggled with one when i was in college you struggled with
00:19:08.540 one too um tell me a little bit more about that and just kind of what you think led you there
00:19:13.320 i think um for me it was probably more so comparing myself with other people and not feeling good enough
00:19:23.080 wanting to be accepted um wanting to be pretty and i was already thin and so it wasn't like i mean
00:19:31.780 naturally i wasn't probably gonna gain all of this weight even though i thought i was and it was
00:19:38.760 something that i was so afraid because i think when i opened up to my mom i started talking to her and i
00:19:47.480 said i'm struggling with this like i would try to get up as late as i could sleep in as long as i could
00:19:53.320 so i could skip a meal and eat as little as i could at a meal because i didn't want to get fat
00:19:58.520 and i talked to my mom who had also um she shares this story she had struggled with an eating disorder
00:20:06.260 and so she started talking with me um about my view of even myself like i i just would compare
00:20:15.120 myself to other people all the time she helped me work through that prayed with me and also um helped
00:20:20.840 me with accountability so i was grateful for that because she would be like text me what you eat text me
00:20:25.820 what you know um you're doing and it was so helpful and at the same time i see like man i don't know
00:20:33.380 exactly how i got to that place but definitely focusing on myself and what others thought of me
00:20:40.740 instead of what god thinks of me and how he made me and created me to be um that's what i think led me
00:20:48.740 there um is the fear of man and tell us a little bit more about how that kind of affected your life
00:20:56.360 this idea that i can't do anything outside of kind of reading my bible unless my parents go tell me to
00:21:02.540 do it so i can't have fun unless my parents go like what did that look like and kind of how long did
00:21:07.400 that season last for you it's hard to say exactly how long it lasted because it felt like it was such a
00:21:14.740 long season uh looking back i just remember multiple times like my grandma was always about
00:21:20.960 going out to thrift stores and i would want to go with her but then i would be like no maybe i should
00:21:26.380 stay home because i have a feeling everything you know like i lived by my emotions and my relationship
00:21:33.860 with god which is not healthy because i think whether i was trying to make a decision about whether or not
00:21:41.180 i should spend this time working out or if i should go and spend time with my siblings play with
00:21:47.000 them um i would put so much guilt on myself because of a feeling instead of basing my my life on the
00:21:55.140 word of god and going to god's word and saying okay my emotions will go up and down but god's word
00:22:01.820 will never change so of course i want to be in the word of god but i'm not going to sit here for three
00:22:07.180 hours every day reading my bible because that's just not healthy and so um i think some of that
00:22:15.700 like my siblings probably would look back at that and say oh yeah we remember ginger in that season
00:22:19.620 yeah um i was just trying to be like all spiritual even with my words i would try not to laugh because i
00:22:25.680 thought oh maybe that's not so spiritual and it was whatever i felt is what i tried to act out and live
00:22:33.580 um and looking back i'm like oh man i would tell my younger self like okay you're not even living out
00:22:40.520 the word of god because i don't i'm not doing the one another's if i'm just at home how am i going to
00:22:45.920 share the gospel with my friends at broomball if i'm sitting at home reading my bible 24 7 and not
00:22:51.500 speaking to my siblings not helping with housework whatever it is you know it's not what god has called
00:22:56.280 this to do yeah and i can see that fear would kind of motivate you so scared to fall outside of like
00:23:02.740 god's favor or what you believed was like the tiny circle of acceptability to god and so it's like well
00:23:08.940 you know that reading the bible is good and so you know i'll just stick with that but you're right you
00:23:13.740 miss out on like so much growth and so much pleasure and so many good things that the lord has for us
00:23:20.440 which i mean it's a little bit of a tough balance because on the other side of that there are
00:23:25.140 obviously people who are like well i never feel like reading my bible so i never do and you know
00:23:31.400 so um tell us a little bit about like how you figured out okay it's not one of these extremes like
00:23:38.260 this is what the gospel actually means and this is how you live it i think it came down to once i
00:23:45.940 realized the theology i was in i think it started to um a lot of those external things in my view of god
00:23:52.900 changed that's when my life began to fall into more of a balance because i wanted to read the word of
00:23:58.880 god because of course i loved god so i wasn't going to neglect the word of god in prayer because i was
00:24:05.220 a christian who loves jesus one you know and but viewing god as a friend i think as a believer was
00:24:13.040 something that took me many years to to start to realize and and think okay i love god i i love him
00:24:22.540 and of course i want to read the word of god but if i am allowing myself to be consumed with fear and
00:24:29.700 thinking i can't do anything else outside of that that's in balance and so realizing that um the word of
00:24:37.740 god is very clear when it speaks about um things that are even sinful right and i would think okay
00:24:44.540 well is going to broomball bad because you have unbelievers there or maybe i'm going to talk to
00:24:49.160 someone who says bad words maybe my mind will be polluted but at the same time i think once i realized
00:24:56.920 who god is that he is a loving and kind savior and he does punish sin because he's a holy god
00:25:03.500 but as a believer when i come to him and say um like lord forgive me for this sin like that's how
00:25:09.840 he forgives my sin it's not by me doing these acts thinking i'm going to gain favor with god or reading
00:25:15.260 the bible is going to make me closer to god because of what i've done not because god changing me from
00:25:21.360 the inside out and so that was the perspective that took me many years to figure out but it just
00:25:29.140 happened by reading the word of god and by being in a solid church that taught me that
00:25:34.440 so when did you start going to that different church i was in um i was in the same church for
00:25:55.440 many years uh with my family and i did not leave until like two weeks before um i was married and
00:26:05.340 part of that was due to the authority structure i felt like i would have been sinning if i did anything
00:26:12.000 different and i probably looking back i probably could have asked my parents hey could i go over to
00:26:16.720 my brother-in-law and sister's church which is an awesome reform church and solid preaching but i just
00:26:23.920 another another layer of that was like am i going to be under god's authority and protection um or am
00:26:30.880 i dishonoring god by by doing that um because adult kids even women can't ever have a job outside the
00:26:38.480 home you can't um like well you can't work outside the home but you can't live outside of the home
00:26:44.880 either until you're married until you're married then that turns to your husband even if you're 40
00:26:50.660 no even if you're 40 you you should remain at home and otherwise it's this umbrella of authority
00:26:57.540 that bill gother taught is that god is here he's up here and then your parents are here and you're
00:27:04.060 below that umbrella if you come out from under their authority by moving out of the home by getting a job
00:27:08.860 then you're opening yourself up to satan's attacks because you don't have an umbrella
00:27:12.500 so that's what i believed wholeheartedly and that's why i stayed and i think once i got to a
00:27:22.940 solid church it was actually my husband jeremy was preaching because he was a pastor i married a pastor
00:27:29.240 who was pastoring in um laredo texas and i went and joined that church and yeah there were there i write
00:27:39.100 more about this in the book the challenges i had relationally with people just trying to figure out
00:27:43.520 um how to be real and honest and vulnerable and open up to those people was a challenge but the word
00:27:51.260 of god that i was hearing was different than what i had heard at my previous church or in bill gothard
00:27:58.800 seminars because it is the word of god is not based on um like oh i'm just gonna go to this to get
00:28:06.480 whatever can help me today but it's like what does the word of god actually say what is the context in
00:28:11.700 this passage preaching through the bible um from like an expositional standpoint where you're going
00:28:18.280 through verse by verse through the bible and seeing oh man this story is the story of god's work in the
00:28:26.060 world it's not all about me and like it does affect us and god does use that um to like show us our need
00:28:32.840 for him to show us our sin all these things but it's amazing the theme of the story being about god
00:28:38.360 and not about like oh i'm gonna pull out a verse to improve my life for today and then i'm gonna move
00:28:42.840 on it that's how i always view the bible and so my view of god completely changed once i was in
00:28:49.160 that solid setting yeah and i'm sure jeremy played a big part in that because he didn't come from your
00:28:55.740 same background right jeremy grew up in a reformed home his dad is a faithful pastor um loves the lord
00:29:03.500 and so he was raised in that he did have some years where he um kind of went off and in in the college
00:29:11.540 party scene lived his life like that but he knew the gospel and the lord never let him enjoy any of his
00:29:18.500 sin so jeremy came to know the lord um and had that foundation of truth and solid teaching that
00:29:28.560 as soon as he was a believer it was like oh i know all these answers because i've been solid church since
00:29:33.900 i was a baby so he came from a setting where they take the word of god um and hold it up as the highest
00:29:40.920 authority and man's traditions and opinions are not important on like these issues where the bible
00:29:49.340 is silent they're silent and when scripture speaks they speak so that's kind of in reference to a lot
00:29:55.320 of different things that gother taught but one of them would be like oh women can't wear shorts or they
00:30:00.640 can't wear pants those are kinds of rules that he imposed on the bible that aren't aren't really there
00:30:06.800 and i'm curious i i'm sure like it took a little bit of time to let go of some of those things that
00:30:14.200 had just been a part of your life so like what was that like even you know obviously you're a believer
00:30:19.460 you're married you were married to jeremy and all that good stuff your eyes were starting to be opened
00:30:23.860 but do you feel like it still took time after that to kind of let go of some of those principles you
00:30:28.160 have been taught yeah ali i think it was it was a long process for me because we did start
00:30:36.020 talking about a lot of these things when we were engaged especially since jeremy came in not
00:30:41.160 knowing really anything about my family he had seen like one or two shows in passing when he was at a
00:30:46.880 friend's house and they turned it on he was like oh that's through a friend sorry i just want to like
00:30:50.820 insert y'all met through a friend right yeah so my brother-in-law um ben he met jeremy at a fellowship
00:30:58.320 in texas and they connected exchange numbers and then they introduced us okay not really setting us up
00:31:04.700 but maybe they were setting us up yeah it did work right um but ben and jeremy like i saw ben's
00:31:14.860 family did things differently than us my brother-in-law and then jeremy when he came on the
00:31:19.000 scene we started to discuss a lot of these seminars when we were engaged because my dad said okay well
00:31:25.200 you know i want you to listen to all these seminars before you get engaged of build author
00:31:29.020 60 plus hours jeremy was he started to roll through them and it was then that he noticed oh wait wait
00:31:36.680 what what do these people believe because on the out it looks like christianity um as he would know it
00:31:43.380 like it's like oh yeah you can do a couple things differently like maybe you hold to courtship or maybe
00:31:49.760 you wear dresses but like you love jesus so that's a thing but once he started to realize the why behind
00:31:59.240 why i did everything that i said was a conviction from scripture he began to pause these videos we
00:32:05.600 started watching them together on um on like zoom because we were long distance and the lord used that
00:32:13.300 in such a good way because i was able to sit down play a clip from bill gothard where he would say
00:32:20.040 okay man does not live by bread alone and then he would say the next verse so therefore we need more
00:32:27.020 fiber in our diet we need all these health things and he would like jump off on this crazy rabbit trail
00:32:34.320 talking about why we need this specific kind of bread the specific bread mixer to make our lives
00:32:39.880 wow wow so i was like why didn't i ever realize this why just seeing this now after going to these
00:32:49.400 conferences every year listening to these seminars every single year and then we started going through
00:32:54.300 every area like if it was modesty um he would go down to some really terrible details we won't talk
00:33:01.320 about but with that time of the month this single dude who never had kids never married would go into
00:33:07.160 details about there never had kids and never got married never i did not know that but that kind of
00:33:14.260 honestly makes more sense yeah yeah it's crazy so he had all the answers to everything how you were
00:33:20.560 supposed to live your life down to every medical issue that he thought could be caused like if you
00:33:25.820 have cancer maybe you did this if you have this issue i have a cure for it so i started to realize
00:33:32.460 when we were going through those that wow this this guy is not a bible teacher like this is so
00:33:39.500 shocking to me to even question it because bill gother would even say of himself he would say
00:33:45.240 once i teach you these um principles it would have been better for you not to hear these principles
00:33:51.640 than to hear it and depart from it wow it's like i mean it's like a cult leader yeah it is i you know
00:33:58.440 i can't say like oh it was a cult but i can say very cult-like in in nature and um kids would be
00:34:05.600 terrified to leave because they thought well what is god gonna do to me even as a believer like that
00:34:10.880 took time for me to focus on truth because i would be gripped with fear throughout those um years of like
00:34:19.780 doing things differently as i saw it according to the word of god my life would change but i would still
00:34:25.800 be hit and gripped with fear a lot and so jeremy was so kind to come along and say okay well here's
00:34:32.920 a text you know run to this text and just saturate your mind in the word of god because that's what is
00:34:39.100 going to release the relieve the fears so the lord was doing a lot of work in those years but it took
00:34:45.980 so much time to like get to a point where i was where i had a view of god as a loving loving heavenly
00:34:54.300 father but then also realizing god is just he does punish sin but what does that look like in the life
00:35:00.340 of the believer like it took me so many years to um realize that god was a good and loving heavenly
00:35:06.180 father not waiting to punish me at every turn for some sin maybe i forgot to confess a bad attitude i
00:35:12.540 may have not confessed to god he wasn't going to just kill me because of that right wow what a blessing
00:35:18.320 that your dad told jeremy that he needed to go through these videos and that you were able to go
00:35:23.780 through them together i mean honestly what an incredible opportunity to go through each teaching
00:35:29.900 you had been taught and for jeremy to pause and for you to just kind of think about well hang on i always
00:35:34.960 accepted that as true but maybe it's not really honestly a much more efficient way of going about
00:35:39.640 that than like that kind of process being spread out over many years even though it did ultimately take a
00:35:45.140 long time still just that kind of concentrated analysis of those principles that's a pretty
00:35:51.460 amazing thing that god did it it was i look back at that with just such gratitude because i i i think
00:35:59.620 what if we got into those like i don't i don't think it would have happened because jeremy's pretty good
00:36:04.360 about like talking through stuff and he would have initially like i mean he would have eventually got
00:36:09.800 down to like why do you do what you do um before we were married but but the level like you said the
00:36:16.160 level of knowledge like quickly like oh why do you believe this okay well it's in the bible jeremy
00:36:22.580 it's in the bible and then i'm like oh wait no it's not in the bible it was like the lord allowed it
00:36:28.420 to be more of a light bulb moment like oh wow i see god's word um totally different than i did before
00:36:35.840 and it it was still like something i would come back to jeremy on a couple things even though i saw
00:36:40.940 it in the word of god i'd be like well let me get back to you on that like kids was a huge thing
00:36:46.240 because i thought it was abortion to use any kind of contraceptive like or any kind of like yeah
00:36:52.620 thing not just hormonal yeah oh no no but just even anything i thought it was a sin and i was it was
00:37:01.040 abortion and so i thought i have to have as many kids as possible so we talked about that and he was
00:37:06.820 kind of like oh of course i love kids um and i was like i think i do too but i i mean i just thought
00:37:13.180 i was gonna have 19 kids and so one took me more time because it was so big in my mind and then
00:37:21.260 clothing like i remember we would we weren't allowed to buy shirts that were sleeveless at all
00:37:28.240 but we could roll our sleeves up when we were in the sun that's okay okay so it's interesting
00:37:33.800 the letter of the law that i used to follow and then i started to look back at that and say wow
00:37:38.940 that was so weird why did i do like like why didn't i see this in the word of god before or not see it
00:37:44.020 so how do you explain to someone because i see the difference but maybe there are some people
00:38:00.220 wondering this between kind of what we see in the whole deconstruction movement versus how you
00:38:06.260 describe it which is disentangling i have my own idea of how i could parse that out but i'm curious
00:38:12.140 how you would describe that yeah you might be able to say it better than i do ali but i will say from
00:38:18.600 my perspective it has been disentangling is totally different than deconstruction because sadly i see
00:38:25.400 a ton of people deconstruction deconstructing like joshua harris has started this deconstruction
00:38:32.060 starter pack and it's so sad it deconstructing is like when you rip everything apart tear everything
00:38:40.620 down to the studs and you never build it up again in your faith and it's like we're done like i've
00:38:46.420 i've ripped down all the things that i thought were true but disentangling has been a process that it does
00:38:54.160 take so many years i think even some days where i'll wake up and i'm like oh like i'll be hit with
00:39:00.860 thoughts about like what i used to believe and think okay well i know what god's word says so
00:39:05.500 it's taking years of me saying okay well this is what god's word says and so i'm gonna believe this
00:39:12.960 even if i was twisted warped view of the bible for so many years from what bill gothard said this first
00:39:20.040 means from what this other church said this first means but going back to the context seeing the word
00:39:25.440 of god for what it truly is walking through the bible just verse by verse within preaching teaching
00:39:31.180 all of that has helped me to take apart what's true from what's false separate like if your hair
00:39:37.660 has putty in it you can just cut your hair off or you can take the time to slowly pick out the putty
00:39:44.040 and get rid of the putty and keep your hair that's kind of like this weird it's a funny little
00:39:49.940 um analogy but that's what i feel like i've been doing throughout these years like um even in
00:39:55.460 parenting now like i have two daughters and it's interesting with them i can fall into this
00:40:01.840 well i have the answer for everything and then i realized no i i have to rely on the spirit of god
00:40:08.640 it's terrifying raising kids when you don't have a system whenever it's so easy to think oh man i was
00:40:14.580 raised in build authored system let me just lean in on that but at the end of the day it's not going
00:40:20.200 to lead to a good place and so i know that and it's going back to the word of god relying on the lord
00:40:26.580 um to lead me and to carry me through because it's so easy to like put all of your trust in a man like
00:40:33.900 i kind of did for bill gothard i i would consider him like a grandfather to me and whenever something
00:40:39.700 like that shakes you i remember when i got the call talking about him i was like man like how did
00:40:46.200 he fall and then i didn't believe it for many years that he actually did and what what happened
00:40:52.240 there he was accused by more than 30 women of um misconduct um with him and he initially said well
00:41:03.160 maybe i had handled some things wrong so i was so shook by that because i was like how can he be
00:41:09.980 what i thought was more of a prophet from god how can he say this and let us down so those types of
00:41:18.280 things would shake me but once i realized okay there will be many people who come in speaking words that
00:41:25.800 seem good like that seem true they try to base it on the bible but ultimately at the end of the day
00:41:32.300 i have to go to the word of god for truth and i can only um even though god has like given us
00:41:38.980 teachers and preachers around us um at the end of the day my faith and my trust is unwavering because
00:41:46.100 it's in jesus christ and um god's word is true and that's what i cling to even in the hardest days
00:41:55.040 and it has taken many years for me to come to the place where i say okay i fully under not fully
00:42:04.040 understand but like the love of god for his children is there i'm not like this there's so much grace
00:42:11.840 that i was missing for all of those years being raised in bill bothard's teaching
00:42:17.560 so this disentanglement has just been me seeing who god truly is believing the word of god even
00:42:26.040 when there's been so much confusion confusion and god has continued to because he's given me the holy
00:42:31.860 spirit he has continued to open my eyes every day to more and more of the beauty of christ the
00:42:37.900 loveliness of christ and the truth of his word has just been made known yeah well amen and everyone
00:42:47.080 can read in more detail about all of this in your book free indeed and i'm guessing they can get it
00:42:53.300 wherever becoming free indeed excuse me um wherever books are sold right yes that's correct awesome well
00:43:00.440 thank you so much ginger and thank you for the time that i know it takes to write a book and to speak
00:43:06.880 your story that's not an easy thing to do and um i just i know that this is going to help a lot of
00:43:13.040 people who maybe weren't raised the exact same way as you but i mean we all in one way or another have
00:43:18.280 some disentangling to do and so thank you so much i really appreciate you taking the time to come on
00:43:23.240 thank you so much for having me ali thanks
00:43:26.000 thank you so much for having me um
00:43:30.200 you