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7-Yr-Old Boy Sends Gift Box to Girl in Philippines—11 Yrs Later, He Gets a Facebook Request That Changes Both of Their Lives Forever

He ignored her first friend request, but 2 years later, she tried again...

“My Life Was Spinning Out of Control” — Lauren Daigle Opens up About Depression, Anxiety, and Rediscovering Her Joy

In a raw and honest interview, Daigle explains that she sought help from a therapist and a neurologist to get her mental health back on track and combat the loneliness and isolation brought on by the pandemic.

She Held Conjoined Twin’s Hand at Birth, Then Officiated On Her Wedding Day

A wedding day her family thought she might not live long enough to see, officiated by one of the loving hands that welcomed her into the world. For Faith Roberts and her family, it was truly a beautiful full circle moment.

Jill Duggar Says Dad Pitted Siblings Against One Another, Used Kids to Manipulate and Intimidate Her

I am currently reading Jill Duggar Dillard’s memoir Counting the Cost about her life growing up in the 19 Kids and Counting Duggar family, and it is both riveting and heartbreaking.

One of the more heartbreaking aspects is the way Jill says her father used scripture to keep his children under his control. One specific example she cites is that they were “constantly reminded not to ‘stir up contention among the brethren,'” which comes from Proverbs 6:18-19. This verse, along with Matthew 18, has sadly been used to encourage abuse victims of all kinds not to report abuse or any problem within their church organization or family, citing talking about it at all as “gossip.” In the Duggar family, Jill says, “It was a way for our parents to keep us siblings from talking badly about each other, or putting anyone down, but over time it became something else — something more sinister. By preventing us from discussing anything controversial or sensitive with each other, the instruction not to ‘stir up contention among the brethren’ became a tool for silence, for control, for guilt.”

Knowing what we now know about Jill Duggar’s sexual abuse at the hands of her brother Josh, this use of scripture seems especially tragic.

But one of the other things Jill says was toxic about her ultra-fundamentalist family is that when she and her husband Derick began to disagree with her father over the filming schedule and lack of compensation for their TLC reality TV shows, he sent her siblings to intimidate her into agreeing with him.

She describes what happened after talks with her dad Jim Bob broke down: “Then came the next wave, a consolidated effort from several of my siblings. They hit the phones, sending voicemails and texts all day long, each one pleading with us to get this resolved. When that didn’t work, some of my siblings started visiting. They’d want to spend hours talking it through, trying to figure out what our problem was and why we weren’t doing what Pops wanted,” she says.

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Jenny Rapson
Jenny Rapsonhttp://www.foreverymom.com
Jenny Rapson is a wife and mom of three from Ohio and the editor of For Every Mom. You can also find her alternately griping and gushing about her kids at her own blog, Mommin' It Up. You can email her at jrapson@outreach.com, or follow her on Twitter.

“My Life Was Spinning Out of Control” — Lauren Daigle Opens up About Depression, Anxiety, and Rediscovering Her Joy

In a raw and honest interview, Daigle explains that she sought help from a therapist and a neurologist to get her mental health back on track and combat the loneliness and isolation brought on by the pandemic.

She Held Conjoined Twin’s Hand at Birth, Then Officiated On Her Wedding Day

A wedding day her family thought she might not live long enough to see, officiated by one of the loving hands that welcomed her into the world. For Faith Roberts and her family, it was truly a beautiful full circle moment.