I suppose I should probably preface what follows by saying that I have never watched as much as a moment of any show by or about the Duggar family. I once had a very cordial chat with Jinger Vuolo (formerly Duggar) at a conference without knowing she was a reality TV personality and probably the best-known person at the whole event. Such is my knowledge of television! And so when I chose to buy and read her new memoir Becoming Free Indeed it was not because I am a fan of her family or heavily invested in her story, but because from the bit I had heard of it, it would powerfully contrast some other recent memoirs. I’ll explain that as I go.

But first, for those who are as ignorant as I am, Jinger Vuolo is one of the 19 children born to Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar. For many years the lives of the Duggar family were broadcast on the TLC shows 19 Kids and Counting and Counting On. This put Jinger and her family squarely in the public eye and gave them a forum to showcase their Christian faith and values. Yet these values were closely tied to the troubling ministry of Bill Gothard.
For many years Gothard had a near cult-like following and exercised tremendous power over many of those who relied on his interpretation of the Bible—including the Duggars. Yet what he taught was only ever loosely drawn from Scripture and always extremely legalistic. As suggested by the book’s subtitle, he kept people in a state of spiritual fear and uncertainty. His ministry exploded a few years ago when a whole series of women credibly accused him of sexual harassment and assault.
Vuolo’s book is essentially the story of her coming to terms with the form of Christianity she experienced in her childhood and her growing awareness of its many shortcomings. But it is also her account of discovering a form of Christianity that is much more consistent with the Bible and much more satisfying. And what I described in the last sentence is precisely why I read her memoir.
We can turn to any number of books to find stories of people who were raised in Christian contexts that were either marked by theological error or moral scandal. Many of these books tell of the author ultimately abandoning her faith. Such tales of deconstruction are all the rage and often sell in vast quantities. And a good number of them are written by people who were raised in contexts much more innocuous than Gothardism. It wouldn’t have been shocking if Vuolo’s memoir had been of that kind.
But thankfully it is not. Rather than describing someone abandoning her faith, Becoming Free Indeed describes someone persistently searching the Scriptures to refine her faith. Rather than describing someone walking away from God, it describes someone drawing closer to him. It provides a powerful contrast to those who chose to revoke their faith by telling of someone who chose to not only remain a Christian, but to grow in her confidence in the Lord and to follow him with even greater passion and commitment.
It tells all of this in the form of a memoir that is interesting on a human-interest level and encouraging on a spiritual level. It tells all to this while protecting confidentiality and respecting parents and family. It tells all of this in a book that I rather enjoyed and gladly commend.

I have been blogging at Challies.com on a daily basis for over 19 years now. That long commitment has allowed me to write thousands of articles and hundreds of book reviews while also sending millions of visitors to other sites through the daily A La Carte feature. Of course I’ve also written a number of books, though through it all the blog has remained the “main thing.” Much of the blog’s content is now also translated into Spanish, French, and a number of other languages.

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Somewhere, buried deep in the collected works of one of those old authors I love so well, I read the story—the legend perhaps—of a battle-weary crusader who had returned from the Holy Land. The years spent far from his home in England, and all the horrors he had witnessed in battle, had served to temper his character. He now longed for nothing more than to retire to his estates and to oversee his lands and holdings.

Terrible memories and horrifying dreams were not the only thing that returned with him, for he also carried a little leather pouch that was filled with seeds. As he had marched through the countryside outside Jerusalem, his eye had often alighted upon a beautiful white flower that covered the hills like a gentle blanket. He had eventually determined he would collect some of its seeds and carefully transport them home to see if they could grow in the vastly different climate of southern England.
And sure enough, the seeds proved hardy and quickly sprouted and grew. Year after year they responded to the first warm rays of the spring sun and brought forth their precious white blooms. Year after year they reminded the Crusader of a different place, a different time, a different country. Year after year they delighted his heart. They were a little bit of a distant land there in his homeland.
And though centuries have past, though the old knight has long since died and his estates given way to dust, you can still find those flowers growing in that very spot. If you visit the holdings that were once his, and especially if you visit in the first days of spring, you will find those flowers sprouting from the ground—still out of place but still growing and thriving, still displaying the beauty of a far-off country.
And just so, the words of Jesus are like seeds that have been transported from heaven and then planted in a land where they are most conspicuous for being out-of-place. Yet though they may be out-of-place, though this may not be their native land, still they have proven hardy—they have put down roots and begun to grow and to thrive. They have taken root inside you and me.
In that way, each of us who is in Christ is tending a little garden in which heavenly seeds have been planted and begun to thrive—seeds of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Each of us is responsible to tend that garden, to foster the growth of those precious seeds, and to watch with joy as they come to fuller and fuller bloom. Each of us has the joy and the sacred responsibility of displaying the beauty, the glory, of a foreign land here in this broken world.