The
world has crashed mightily around the Duggar Family. For many years
they had lived their lives in front of millions of strangers, proudly
displaying their life of faith. They truly are people of faith, I
believe; and even in this horrible time for them, Christ will guide
them through all of this, teaching them and bringing ultimate Glory
to Himself. God is bigger than this crisis. They, and we, have been
humbled by the simple truth of sin.
I
was not a “fan” of the Duggars, but I tried it out one year and
enjoyed following the courtship, engagement and wedding of the first
daughter. I was not convinced that their way of life was the only way
for life to be lived; but they did make some great points about
temptations and how to avoid them. I was not drawn back to watch it
the next year.
Rest
assured, I did not see a problem with having as many kids as you
could support and enjoy raising. That argument is baffling to me. And
I certainly support home schooling and family closeness in large
doses.
My
brother and I had none of that kind of support. We did not even have
cousins our age to consider family and enjoy from time to time. It
was just Bill and I, and we were close as very young children. Then
we realized we did not like each other all that much and got over
that. We were too different to quite make that connection.
I
believe that the last thing Mom and Dad Duggar ever expected to have
in their home was a sexual pervert, or murderer or any blatant sinful
person. When they discovered his sins, they basically did everything
wrong in their attempt to do right by him. I suspect that they had
never been aware of the perversion of child molestation and did not
have a clue how ingrained the temptation is. Nor were they aware of
the broader implications that that sexual desire, kept at bay ,would
explode somewhere, somehow over the years no matter how much
counseling and retraining might be involved.
Regardless
of what was done, I never believe that John had come to the
conclusion that what he had done was really wrong. This is because of
my own experience; and the known consistent failed results of trying
to remove perversion from a heart determined to do it.
My
Father came into my room when I was only 12 (or 13) and attempted to
molest me. At first, I had the normal victim reaction of not
understanding what was going on and not knowing what to do about it.
But in his attempt to win me over to his side he told me that he was
not really my father... I jumped up, threw the door open and yelled
at him to get out and never come back. The victim spell was broken.
He
never came back into my room, but he never quit molesting me with his
eyes and gestures for the next years of my teens. I felt at risk if
we were the only ones home, so I stayed in my bedroom a lot. He
continued wanting to molest me and I knew it. I hated him.
Then
after my seven year drought of not being able to worship the God I
had come to love at 8 years of age, I was finally introduced to a
church and a place where I could worship and praise and learn. In
that learning, God was very close to me and He made it clear that He
was Love (my Father who love me and did not want to harm me in
anyway); but He also made it clear that Love and Hate could not live
in the same heart. I had to forgive my Dad and at least try to be
friendly to him. So, I did.
The
sadist part of the story is that over the years, Dad continued to
secretly reference the occasion and quip that he knew that I had
enjoyed what “we” did: even to the day he died. He truly believe
dthat he had done something that pleased me. He never repented or
changed his mind in anyway. Perversion is a liar and those lies live
loudly in the pervert.
Now
that the most drastic news has been uncovered, I am not only not
surprised, I am not yet finished asking questions: Did he molest his
own children?
I
personally knew a molester and his wife. He finally went to jail
because what he was doing was finally told by a granddaughter. This
was followed by confessions of his own children that he had molested
them.
I
kick myself about this because I should have recognized the signs. I
simply laughed him off as he made passes at me and others right in
front of his wife. I called him a dirty old man, the phrase of the
day, and left it at that. Shame on me. My Dad was also a dirty old
man who had had sex with every woman he possibly could, even on the
day he married my Mom. It was a very tawdry story. And so was the one
I had been watching.
Sin
has a hold on all of us and we can fall into any of it in seconds. We
can also be forgiven any of it in seconds. But we cannot be cured
of it's effects quite that miraculously quickly. John Dugger had
the unfortunate experience of being declared healed way too soon.
Any
person who commits such sin must be watched; closely and forever.
Even with God's help they need a kind of support that will seem an
invasion of privacy, but which must be carried out; prayerfully. Only
God can get into and grab hold of the sinful desires and cast them
out; or help the person to lean on Him for self control of those
desires
So,
again I ask, Has he molested his own children? If so, he needs to own
up to that as well. They will need a lot of help, and they must get
it soon.
God,
we know that you know this family only too well, and that there is a
great deal of healing needed in every heart right now. We asked that
you intervene in your powerful manner and help these children of
yours to come clean and place their hurting hearts in your hands. The
world is not finished punishing them. All they have is You, but You
are enough, even for all of this. In Jesus Name and for His sake,
Amen.
