Becoming Free Indeed: a journey questioning ideology of fear and finding true faith

Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear by Jinger Duggar Vuolo is a story of one young woman questioning the ideology of her youth and growing in one’s faith. Everyone knows the Duggar family. Jinger is the sixth child of the famous TLC 19 Kids and Counting family. From the age of 10 years to her late twenties, her life was a fishbowl. She was convinced that obeying the rules was the key to success and a faith-filled life. She promoted Bill Gothard’s Basic Life Principles. While, to the public eye, it seemed she successfully followed the rules, lived accordingly and it was working; however, in private she lived in constant fear that she was displeasing to God. It wasn’t until a new family member, her brother-in-law, that Jinger began to examine what she believed, why did she believe it and did the Bible say something different? When she met her future husband, pastor Jeremy Vuolo, she realized that her life was built on rules and not on God’s Word. Jinger began to commit herself to studying the Bible, to truly understand it for the first time. She shares what her life was like living under the tenants of the IBLP, the Biblical truth that changed her perspective and how she disentangled her faith from the fear with a renewed faith and deeper relationship with Jesus Christ. 

I won a copy of Mrs. Vuolo’s book through a Goodreads giveaway. While I wasn’t a huge fan of the Duggar family’s show and I certainly didn’t agree with the tenants they lived by, I was intrigued by the daughters as they grew, married and started families of their own. I was shocked at the chance to read Becoming Free Indeed. I found Mrs Vuolo’s words to be filled with conviction, honesty and love as she told her journey. She goes in depth examining the rules and principles taught by Gothard and the IBLP against the Bible. She discusses the whirlwind feelings she experiences as she realizes that these rules were not Biblical. Her hope with the book is that it is helpful to those who have been hurt by those who claimed to be of God. I say she succeeds in that goal. Jesus is more than a rule maker who seeks to punish us for displeasing him. I highly, highly recommend Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear. 

Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear

is available in paperback, eBook, and audiobook