Overcoming People-Pleasing, Embracing Identity, and Discovering Community – Interview w/ Jinger Duggar Vuolo

Aaron Smith (01:10.206)
Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Marriage After God podcast. Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Jinger Duggar Vuolo. How’s it going?

Jinger (01:05.536)
Awesome. Yeah.

Jinger (01:17.836)
Good. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me, Aaron.

Aaron Smith (01:20.014)
Yeah, I’m so glad to have you on the show and we’re going to get into your new book a little bit later called People Pleaser. And I think it’s such an important topic because after understanding a little bit about what your book’s about and reading some of it, I’m realizing that I’ve got some of those tendencies. I’m not usually on a large portion of my personality of People Pleaser, but there are definitely some things that I’m going to be asking you about because I’m realizing like, I do that. So I think our listeners are going to love.

Aaron Smith (01:48.718)
what you have to say. But first, think it would be important. I, to be honest, I bet you most of my listeners know you. I’m gonna be honest, I’ve never, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an episode of the show that you grew up on. But, that doesn’t mean anything. I would love to know more about you. What’s your background story, marriage, just give us a little bit of who you are and then we’ll get into some of other stuff.

Jinger (02:12.056)
Yes, so I was raised on TV from the age of 10 until 27. Just four years ago, the show ended, so reality show, crazy, crazy upbringing, life in the spotlight, but then also at the same time, I was also raised in the teachings of Bill Gothard, which I don’t know.

Jinger (02:37.792)
A lot of people were affected by his teaching throughout the years in the 60s and 70s. He was a very prominent teacher. And so that, those teachings were really difficult for me to come to an understanding of even as a believer, like seeing God as a loving heavenly father. So that setting was more cult-like. And so there were a lot of things happening in my upbringing. My parents were faithful.

Jinger (03:04.504)
to teach me the gospel and to share Christ. And so they taught me the true gospel and then Bill Gothard would teach me other things that were not based in the Bible. And so it was just years of me working through, disentangling truth from error, the teachings I was raised under, I realized, okay, I want to not throw out the word of God because a lot of people in this time would just deconstruct their faith.

Jinger (03:33.152)
if they were raised in anything that they thought was harmful or maybe they were working through a lot. And so I was on a journey of disentangling, which is taking out the truth, I mean, taking out the error and then clinging to the truth and the word of God. And that’s just a slow, painful process. So that’s what my last book was about was coming out of those teachings. And so moving forward, it’s been a sweet journey that the Lord’s led us on. He allowed me to meet an amazing man, Jeremy.

Jinger (04:02.936)
who I’ve been married to for eight years now, and we have two little girls who are six and four. And then I have a little boy that I’m due with in about seven weeks. Thank you.

Aaron Smith (04:09.518)
Amazing.

Aaron Smith (04:14.024)
congratulations. That’s awesome.

Aaron Smith (04:16.279)
Yeah, we had our sixth baby. Gosh, think five. I think she’s five months. I might be wrong. Yeah.

Jinger (04:22.336)
wow, that’s awesome. I’m number six

Jinger (04:24.972)
in my family, so that’s actually like a great number.

Aaron Smith (04:27.446)
I was going to ask actually where you fell in that because

Aaron Smith (04:30.39)
the show, did you mention the name? It’s 19 Kids and Counting, is that what it was?

Jinger (04:33.408)
So 19

Jinger (04:33.978)
kids and counting, was, yeah, 17 kids and counting, 18 kids and counting, 19 kids and counting, I don’t even know. There are a lot of those things. And then counting on.

Aaron Smith (04:38.168)
Keep growing.

Aaron Smith (04:42.528)
I got a question about the TV portion of it. Were you born, like were they already doing the show before you were born?

Jinger (04:49.566)
No, so I started filming at the age of 10. And so I was introduced kind of. It was interesting. My dad was in politics and so we had a certain sense of some public notoriety just because of him. He served two terms in the Arkansas State House and so given that there there were like some news articles that were out there about our family because.

Aaron Smith (04:53.746)
wow.

Jinger (05:19.444)
he was in that position. But it was not until later on that one of those articles was picked up by TLC, which at that time was Discovery Health actually. So Discovery Health asked if they could do a couple of documentaries. That’s when my mom had 14 kids. And so I was 10 years old. And that show, they asked if they could do a documentary, one hour documentary about our family talking about how many kids we had.

Jinger (05:46.656)
and how crazy it was. And so my parents prayed about it, really felt like that’s what the Lord would have them to do. they came, filmed that pilot and it actually did so well. It was the highest rated show on their network. So they came back and asked for a couple more documentaries. And they, from those two other documentaries on the road with 16 children, 16 children moving in, then they asked if they could do a reality show. And at that time we were like, what’s the reality show? Cause we had no TV in the home.

Aaron Smith (06:14.979)
Yeah.

Jinger (06:16.8)
We just were like totally disconnected from anything in that media realm. And so it was an interesting thing when the cameras started coming around at 10.

Aaron Smith (06:29.006)
Was there, I don’t want to talk too much about this because I want to get into the people pleasing stuff, which, but I think a lot of this has to do with why you’ve had that perspective. What was the draw to your family into wanting to do the show? Like the document is one thing. It’s like coming in and like, oh, okay, like you want to learn about our family. But then the show is a whole nother thing. And then the second part of that question is, was there discussion with you kids, with the children about doing it and what you guys all thought about that?

Jinger (06:58.636)
Yeah, I think that their, the draw was for, of course, for the network, it was like, this is crazy. So they just saw the pool of what people wanted to see. How do you function as large family? How do you make meals? All those things in homeschool. And we were very ultra conservative in that setting of Bill Gothard’s teaching. And so there were a lot of things that we did that were just so out of the ordinary. So the draw for them was to see it. And then the draw for my parents,

Jinger (07:28.566)
was to be able to share those teachings with the world. so, and also ultimately, I think their goal was to share Christ. And so I think that that drive was how it started out. And they sat us down initially whenever we were approached by the network and said that they wanted to do a reality show. And like I said, at that time, there was not a category in our mind for what that would look like.

Aaron Smith (07:53.837)
Yeah.

Aaron Smith (07:58.114)
Kind of pretty social media too.

Jinger (07:58.132)
We never,

Jinger (07:59.883)
yeah, we never watched TV. We pulled out, we had like a little tiny TV screen that was so small and we would pull it out for like a presidential speech or something because we were very involved in politics. And so any like major thing that happened, 9-11, I remember that little TV came out of the closet, but that was it. So putting ourselves on TV without knowing what it was as kids was an interesting concept.

Aaron Smith (08:06.328)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith (08:26.78)
Mm.

Jinger (08:27.07)
And so they really like talked and prayed with us through that whole time. And they felt like this was what God had for them and for us as a family. So was a family thing where they tried to incorporate us kids and get us on board too as like, this is a ministry.

Aaron Smith (08:44.878)
And you guys, so you guys did get on board with that. Looking back, just as a, I’m wondering for yourself, would you consider that now, knowing what you know now for your family?

Jinger (08:55.96)
You know, it’s so interesting. just was having a conversation with a friend today who was raised in the same, same stuff on TV. And it was interesting hearing his perspective because we both can say, okay, you can look back and see the positives and negatives of being raised in the public eye from such young age. There are things that we will have to wrestle through for the rest of our lives because we were raised in that way. And at the same time, you can look at it and say, okay, God allowed this to happen for a reason.

Jinger (09:24.184)
And we walked through such tragedy in that time too. There was so much pain and hardship that we had to walk through in the public eye where you would not wish that upon anybody. And at the same time, God is faithful through it. And so I don’t look back with any regret over what God allowed. And yeah, there were so many fun experiences that I got to have because of the TV show.

Aaron Smith (09:35.65)
Mm-hmm.

Jinger (09:50.072)
that we wouldn’t have been able to afford it as large family to travel across the world, go see other countries and things like that. And to be able to even have a voice to speak into the lives of others. And even now as an adult, there’s an opportunity and responsibility that I see. And so I’m grateful for what God has allowed, even though I don’t always fully understand why God does certain things. And so that’s something where, yeah, it hasn’t been easy.

Jinger (10:19.148)
but it also has, it’s been God’s plan. And so I just accept that. And now like moving forward with our family, we’re like, okay, well, those were all those years of filming there and that was our life then. So now what do we want as a family, as a couple? What is our goal for our future family moving forward? And how much do we wanna share in the public eye? How much do we not wanna share? And so those are the conversations that we have.

Aaron Smith (10:41.772)
Mm-hmm.

Jinger (10:44.918)
and we just have these little touch points like every year just circle back like, okay, how have we done this year? What are things that we wanna like change? And so we’ve kept our girls’ faces off of social media. Don’t talk a ton about them in the public space because we wanna give them their privacy. And so, but we’re still there sharing our story.

Aaron Smith (11:03.404)
I think one of the hidden blessings, like you were saying, of just looking back and saying, well, God had a plan, He was working, and He was faithful. And you have some insights now, especially with social media, just you can make yourself as accessible as you want, like anyone can. And I think there’s a lot of people that they’re not going to have that wisdom and insight that you have.

Aaron Smith (11:25.454)
are learning later on through social media and exposure and what they’re revealing. And so I think it’s interesting. live in a current, our current culture has to have a value. We have to those conversations with our spouses and about our families. Like, well, what do we want to reveal to the world? Where it used to be like no one knew you unless something crazy happened and the news wrote about you or like, know, with you guys, they came in and said, Hey, we just want to, heard about you on the news and we want to do a documentary that, but now anyone can just reveal everything about themselves. And it’s crazy.

Jinger (11:38.968)
No.

Jinger (11:51.372)
That is so

Jinger (11:52.553)
true and that’s a great point, Erin. I think it’s so fascinating because we do see, we can talk about reality TV and the craziness it has produced and it’s like, yeah, you can see that. But like you said, social media is the same thing and people can have as much exposure or as little as they’d like for their families and it’s not like it’s all bad. That’s something too that even though, so I grew up in that space and so I might have like a different perspective.

Jinger (12:20.692)
on how I want to allow myself to be like, to open up in that space and how much I’m gonna share or how much of my family’s life I want to share. So I might be more guarded than the average person, have healthy respect for what I put out there. But at the same time, I think that, you know, it can be such an awesome avenue for sharing truth with the world. And like you said, you can get stuff out there very quickly. But then it’s also like,

Jinger (12:50.23)
that like Catch-22, you just realize like there’s so many things that can be shared that are helpful, but then you can also overshare it or you can also not realize the repercussions of that on your family 10 years down the road. And so I think we’re only discovering more and more the effects of what social media can do or even reality TV shows have done to families.

Aaron Smith (13:15.136)
Yeah, I think I just go back to that scripture. It just tells us to as a wise builder counts the costs that if we’re going to be engaging in these things that we got to be very careful what we’re considering and especially when it comes to our children. It’s one thing if you or your husband or me or my wife want to be on there, but we got to be very careful how we are making decisions for our children. I think that’s really good wisdom. So you you’re raised sounds like your parents love the Lord.

Aaron Smith (13:41.89)
raised you guys to know the gospel of Jesus Christ and taught you who He was. And it sounds like there was this side influence, this outside influence that was brought in somehow. I don’t know the background on that, but I only learned about Bill Gothard a handful of years ago. I didn’t grow up under any of his teachings. My parents… We grew up in Southern California under a lot of Calvary Chapel-style teaching and just verse by verse.

Jinger (14:04.354)
Yeah.

Aaron Smith (14:07.41)
Not that everything that my parents learned and grow, like not every church is perfect. we have, you know, things happen and, but what were some of the, what was, what do you think cultivated this as we, you know, learn more about who you are and this journey you’ve been on about people pleasing. Where do you think some of those tendencies came from? It’s probably some of your just personality, right? I would imagine there’s a big part of it that, but then was it, was it.

Jinger (14:11.276)
Right.

Aaron Smith (14:35.052)
Some of it also outside influence, inside influence, being in a family so large, what was that?

Jinger (14:40.088)
You know, it’s interesting looking at it as a whole. My parents were introduced to these teachings before they had kids. And so they had learned about Bill Gothered and started to implement some of that prior to having any children. And that is ultimately why they went on to have 19 kids was because of the teachings saying that you can not have any sort of family planning, even if it’s natural family planning, cause that’s not allowing

Jinger (15:08.652)
the Lord to be in charge of your womb. And so I think that a lot of families had adapted a lot of stuff from him. So whether that was a modesty standard of wearing skirts and dresses only if you’re a woman or late, like girls can not work outside of the home. They have to stay at home until they’re married. And it was an interesting, interesting setting to grow up in. And so there were a lot of things that were introduced.

Jinger (15:36.704)
to my parents early on. So they, think that ultimately what drew a lot of families to this teaching was that it was a guarantee for success. You were promised that if your family was in these teachings that they, your kids would turn out, that they would be a light to the nations, that they would love God and they would stand out in a crowd. And so it was something, it is.

Aaron Smith (16:02.798)
Which by the way is really attractive. Because as

Aaron Smith (16:06.038)
a parent of six, I often feel like I have no idea what I’m doing and I would love a guarantee.

Jinger (16:06.84)
Yeah.

Jinger (16:09.906)
Yes.

Jinger (16:11.747)
yes. And you know what? That’s so true because even now coming out of those teachings, I know the teachings were not actually giving you what they said they were going to give you because half of the kids rebelled. Half the kids ended up rejecting the faith and have ended up in terrible places because it was not based in the Bible. It was based in rules and even manmade teachings. And it was anti-gospel.

Jinger (16:36.588)
when it came down to it because Bill Gothard even a couple times had said, if you don’t do my three steps, then you cannot have freedom with God. He said, you don’t wanna bring God into this mess. You need to do my three steps, clean up your life, and that way you can have a relationship with God. So that was so messed up, and my parents would have never said that to us.

Aaron Smith (16:54.574)
Jesus and.

Jinger (17:01.334)
But there was a certain sense of like, we saw Bill Gothert as like a prophet sent from God to share these teachings that we never would have found out otherwise. So that, you know, it’s interesting when you have these core beliefs that are just, you’re surrounded with it. And then our community, our friends, we were in a home church that was not, it didn’t have any sort of formal leadership. It was actually not in a biblical.

Jinger (17:27.928)
healthy church because we would just watch Bill Gothard’s videos half the time for sermons and we would watch maybe a David Jeremiah here and there, which was better. And then we would be like, we watched a strange fire thing by MacArthur once. And I don’t think that was even in church. Maybe it was at our house, but it’s like, we kind of were more eclectic. But then at the same time, Bill Gothard was our man that we followed the most and his teachings.

Aaron Smith (17:37.806)
Mm.

Jinger (17:56.024)
permeated everything that we did. And so it really allowed us to be more isolated and insulated in who our friends were as well. And so we were on TV. We had film crews in our home for three to five days a week, sometimes more. And these guys were just, you know, from the world. So like we weren’t totally isolated. We would travel. We’d be out in our community filming. But

Jinger (18:23.54)
our lives with our friends were very much in this teaching. And so I think that the broader worldview and perspective of what we saw as like the reality of the world of what true Christianity is, I think it was very narrow-minded and not like, okay, you can’t walk with the Lord. I would say somebody like maybe you, you said maybe, you you weren’t raised in Bill Gother’s teaching.

Jinger (18:52.258)
there would be a certain grace for you because you’re a Christian walking with the Lord. And I can see that, okay, that’s great because you haven’t learned the teachings yet, but once you learn them, then you’ll be at this next level and you’ll be guaranteed success. So that promise of guarantee kept people coming back for so many years until their family started to fall apart, until it didn’t work out. And then you would see who was genuinely a believer and they would go.

Aaron Smith (19:02.189)
Mm-hmm. Didn’t y’all know.

Jinger (19:20.864)
and work through what they needed to work through coming out of that. And then others would just throw out everything because they were so confused.

Aaron Smith (19:27.15)

Aaron Smith (19:28.711)
It’s kind of like an elitism. Like you guys believe like you have this your own level of, you know, spirituality, Christianity, because you have this knowledge from Bill that, you know, sets you apart from everything. I just do you know, Melissa Doherty? Have you heard? Yeah. So I just did an interview. okay. I just did one with her. And we were talking about this idea of having these secret knowledge like, yes, you can have God, but there’s this other thing over here.

Jinger (19:42.678)
Yes, I did a podcast with her. Yeah, that’s awesome.

Aaron Smith (19:56.522)
And it’s so interesting how these things often they masquerade as almost truths, sort of truths. Like they are close. Like you can even back up a lot of it with scripture and you can dig into the Word of and be like, right here, look, this is where it says this. But when you don’t take the whole counsel, the whole counsel of the Word of God as a full picture of what Christ has revealed to us, what God has revealed to us about His character, then you’ll attach to certain ideas that are kind of right.

Aaron Smith (20:26.274)
They’re close to right. They sound right. You’d have a heart. Most people probably have a hard time arguing against it. And so it’s very deceptive and it sounds very difficult to… I was leading this up to say, were you kids, all your siblings and you, was it okay for you guys to ask questions, to be curious, say, why are we doing that? Where does it say that? Was that something that was a part of your family? Like you were allowed to question

Jinger (20:27.96)
Yes.

Jinger (20:52.728)
I would

Aaron Smith (20:52.772)
things?

Jinger (20:53.328)
say my parents would never have turned us down from asking questions. So they were very open and they would communicate with us about a lot of things. And they always said, if you want to come talk to us about anything you can. At the same time, I think that because of the teachings and the setting, was always an answer for everything.

Jinger (21:21.76)
And so it was in Bill Gawthard’s teaching. So if you wanted, if you had a question, ultimately, yes, there probably would be an answer for you, but it would be found in the, in the Basic Seminar Guide, or it would be found within one of his books. And so that was something that was interesting because until I learned to read the Bible properly, where I’m not just pulling a verse out of context, making it say whatever I want it to say,

Jinger (21:51.936)
then I was so convicted that his words were the words of God because he would take a verse and he would make it, he would twist it, he would have some really, really gripping story that he would put alongside it and he would be like this person, they were leasing their building to somebody and they had no clue that it was going to bring disaster on them and you’re like, why? Why did it bring disaster? And he would say, well, because

Jinger (22:20.566)
they happened to have an alcohol permit. Maybe they didn’t even serve alcohol, but they had a permit that allowed them to have alcohol in the building and that actually brought detriment to the family or the family got sick and they didn’t know why. So it was very superstitious and a lot of those things, if you’d ask questions about it, it would kind of be like, okay, yeah, but this is what happens. So a lot of it would go back to analogy and stories that were told to keep you almost…

Jinger (22:49.952)
trapped with fear and thinking that God was out to get you, even for things you didn’t know you did wrong. But that guarantee for success for the family has kept him coming to that place of feeling like, okay, well, this is gonna work out eventually. It’s gonna work out eventually. And it wasn’t the case, because we saw so many, even my own family member included, who just, it doesn’t work.

Jinger (23:15.512)
when you put rules in place, it’s like you can have so much of those things propping you up. And at the end of the day, it comes down to their heart, your kid’s heart, and having a relationship with God themselves. And you can’t rely on a list of rules. And even stepping outside of those teachings, seems it was the scariest thing for me because at the age of 14, I thought I had all the answers to how I was gonna parent my kid. And if somebody said,

Jinger (23:42.762)
my daughter is 12, she’s rebellious, I’d be like, And I thought I had all the answers for them because I knew all the steps to take as a Bill Gothard kid. I’d be like, yeah, these are the steps, okay, she must have gone wrong, maybe she had rock music in her home or she had drums and that caused her to go this way. So there were all these steps that you would follow and so once I realized, wow, that’s not actually based in the Bible.

Jinger (24:12.086)
And that’s not a guarantee for success. was scarier because then actually as a believer, you’re relying on the Lord. You have to come to God and ask him for help. So with parenting, we’re only six years into that. We have our six year old daughter and there are times where my husband and I are just like, wow, Lord, we need wisdom. Like we have a strong, strong little girl on our hands and we need to know how to parent her in this situation. And so there are…

Jinger (24:39.124)
I think the reliance on the Lord was kind of lacking because there was lack of prayer. There was a lack of that need for God because you had all the answers in this man who promised you that everything was going to be fine if you did his steps.

Aaron Smith (24:54.621)
You’re you’re speaking on a lot of things that I don’t think believers recognize often because we want solutions. We want formulas. And my devotional this morning, it was talking about that. It’s like, you know, we were looking for, you know, these five steps and we’ll get this result. And God’s like, I want you to follow me.

Aaron Smith (25:12.846)
I’m not going to tell you all the time where you’re headed. not going to tell you what he’s like, I want your steps to match my steps. want you to be in step with me. mean, the scripture even tells us that if you’re going to be in the spirit, then keep in step with the spirit. Meaning the spirit of God is moving somewhere, doing something that he desires to do to bring glory to the Father. Are you trying to do that? Are you following? Are you desiring that? And we do, we get into issues. I’m thinking about with my kids what you were just saying about, Lord, I don’t know what I’m doing.

Aaron Smith (25:42.222)
When I feel like I’m responsible for their salvation, right, as if I can save anyone, then I feel like I’m like, well, I’m definitely failing. For 100%, there’s no way they’re going to be saved based off of my ability. But then when I lay that down and say, well, my job is to show them, to tell them, to reveal to them who Christ is. And then God’s to do the work. He’s to do the growing. I might be planning and watering. That’s my job.

Jinger (25:52.726)
Yeah.

Aaron Smith (26:11.742)
then I need to trust God.” And that’s what Christ wants is he wants a relationship with us, not a formula. That’s what the Pharisees did. The Pharisees

Jinger (26:19.639)
Yes.

Aaron Smith (26:19.894)
had a formula like, well, do this and that and don’t do this and don’t do that and then you’re going to be good. And it’s like, well, Jesus had something to say to them about all those things. Yeah. So you grew up in a family that loved God, had some wayward influence. And this is something, by the way, that I love

Jinger (26:28.8)
Exactly.

Aaron Smith (26:41.28)
about God is that you’re telling me a story about how you had these, your own story, that you’re law-based, legalistic, this, you know, we do these things, we’ll be right with God. And you didn’t even have to run to God, you just need the answers from this other person. And still God made a way. And still God led you

Jinger (27:00.938)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith (27:03.872)
in such a way and was able to work in you and around you and like you said in the story of your parents and the TV show and all these things that if you were to go back before this you couldn’t have planned it out. You couldn’t have let this is how it’s going to work. And a part of that story is you meeting your husband. And I want to I want to dig into that. His name is Jeremy. don’t I’ve never met him. I’d love to know some about him but it sounds like he was kind of a pivot point in your life. I’d

Jinger (27:19.82)
Yeah.

Jinger (27:30.104)
Big time.

Aaron Smith (27:31.326)
to know about that.

Jinger (27:32.946)
It was the biggest blessing from God that he brought Jeremy into my life and I met him through my brother-in-law because my brother-in-law met him and he was like, hey, how can I pray for you, And Jeremy was like, man, it’s really lonely being in ministry and being single. And so my brother-in-law said, well, I have a lot of sister-in-laws who are pretty godly. So, you know, a lot of them. So,

Aaron Smith (27:54.382)
Mm.

Jinger (27:59.096)
Jeremy actually came and we met up with him in Texas and that was the first time we met him and it was really sweet. When I first met him I was like, okay, he’s not gonna be interested in me because we are six years apart in age. And so he was just a little older, wiser, and I was like, oh yeah, he would never go for me. But he…

Aaron Smith (28:18.606)
Mm-hmm.

Jinger (28:24.152)
He was so godly, so I kept hearing all these amazing things about him and the work he was doing on the border of Mexico at this church plant. And it was really encouraging. My brother-in-law was very good to fill me in all the time. So yeah, it was cool how God actually worked that out and drew our hearts together. And then we ended up getting married in 2016. And then the Lord just…

Jinger (28:50.188)
used Jeremy in so many ways to help me to come free from those teachings of Bill Gothered just from walking through the Bible. And so if he would ask me about something, this was like pre engagement, of course. So he had to go through 60 plus hours of Bill Gothered’s teaching before we could move on to the next step in our relationship. That was something my dad really wanted him to do. And it was actually a blessing from the Lord.

Jinger (29:18.744)
So we started like walking through and it felt like every 10 to 15 seconds he would pause the seminar and he’d be like, okay, what did he just say? And I would listen and be like, oh, he just said this, you know, about like whatever it was, if it was like a music thing, it was like drums are gonna call demons. And he’s like, well, where’s that in scripture? What verse did he use to point that out? So we started pausing.

Aaron Smith (29:40.536)
you

Jinger (29:42.772)
the seminars throughout and it actually was such a blessing because then it allowed me to see that these teachings were in fact not based in scripture but it was just he would he would tell a story he was a master teacher manipulator really in the way that he would like formulate a story share a verse and then at the end he would have you pray and make a vow to God to keep that to keep that teaching that was a man-made teaching so we were able to work through a lot

Jinger (30:12.298)
in that time. And so when we went to engagement, I was still working through so much theologically that I realized was so not aligned with the Bible, but the Lord used Jeremy in so many ways to help me to come out of that teaching. And then

Jinger (30:30.974)
even further into marriage, like I talk about this in People Pleaser, because there was, there were instances even in early marriage where because of the teachings of Bill Godthird, I would not share with Jeremy if I had a disagreement with him or if I, you he would ask me, where do you want to go to dinner? I’d be like, wherever you want to go is fine. Part of that was temperament. The other part of it was like a fear of him feeling like,

Aaron Smith (30:55.48)
feeling like you’re not

Aaron Smith (30:57.658)
submitting to him.

Jinger (30:58.442)
Yeah, and also me

Jinger (31:00.113)
having to keep him happy all the time because if you didn’t look right, if you didn’t have a perfectly clean house, have the kids in order, homeschool them all perfectly and have a cheerful attitude, be joyfully available him at all times and he leaves, it’s all his fault. I mean, it’s all your fault because it’s on you as the wife to make him perfectly happy, be perfectly agreeable. So I would not express what I was thinking or feeling for the first.

Aaron Smith (31:19.662)
Hmm.

Jinger (31:27.0)
several months into marriage at least and Jeremy realized what was happening. He was like, hey, if you have a disagreement with me, if you think that something I’ve said or where we’re going in our direction in life, like I wanna hear what you have to say. I don’t want you to be a clone of me. I don’t want you to be agreeable. I wanna know who Ginger is. And so that was something that was very freeing, but part of it was just going back and realizing like I don’t wanna.

Jinger (31:51.818)
I was people pleasing in that way, thinking I have to keep him constantly happy. And in arguments equal rejection. So I don’t want to like have a disagreement. And then it’s gonna mean that he, you we can’t be on the same page. And so realizing there’s a healthy balance when it comes to that in our lives, because we need to be able to talk with people who have.

Aaron Smith (32:01.368)
you

Jinger (32:14.232)

Jinger (32:14.692)
differing opinions from us, even friends, if it’s on something as small in motherhood as like, do we sleep train or not, then we need to be able to talk through it and it’s okay, we can agree to disagree, we’re gonna do things differently, but that does not mean that we all have to come together and have this same unified front or we cannot be friends. And so I think that these things I was working through and yeah, definitely in the people pleasing world though.

Jinger (32:41.654)
That was something that was really hard for me. Just started with our relationship in early marriage.

Aaron Smith (32:48.206)
Yeah, you talked about that. I believe it was in Chapter 8 about feeling rejection, disagreements. This is one of the things that actually stood out to me that I was like, I wouldn’t say I’m someone who just avoids confrontation. Some people would probably say I’m actually really confrontational. But I actually, there’s quite a few times in my life and in certain types of situations that I hate confrontation. And also I hate presenting my…

Aaron Smith (33:16.504)
perspective on something because I’m afraid of it causing an argument or causing feeling rejected and and so those are things that I’ve I’ve struggled with and it sounds like that’s a part of I do have a I do want to people please sometimes and not rock the boat not created I’m afraid of like someone leaving I’m afraid of someone like wanting to quit on me and I was when I read that I was thinking like I do that so I may not do it in every situation or every circumstance but

Jinger (33:19.896)
Yeah.

Jinger (33:32.279)
Mm.

Jinger (33:34.999)
Thanks.

Aaron Smith (33:46.094)
It’s definitely something I feel. you were still pre-married. You were still heavily in these teachings. Your parents wanted him to go through these, the courts, how many, 60 videos, 60 hours? my goodness. What a patient dude.

Jinger (33:58.712)
60 hours of his teachings.

Jinger (34:03.896)
He’s so patient and

Jinger (34:05.276)
he talked to my dad for five and a half months before we could even talk. So he really respected my parents wishes. And I think that he was also, the Lord knew what he was doing in timing of that because him being six years older than me was helpful because he had done a lot already. He had.

Aaron Smith (34:09.262)
You

Jinger (34:31.094)
been, he was raised in a Christian home, but then he went off and played soccer and the Lord, he wasn’t sure exactly when he was saved. He was like, I could have been saved at five or I could have been saved in college. But it was interesting just how he had, you know, been living his life in professional soccer and then went into ministry and there was a certain maturity and wisdom and groundedness that he had walked through to get him to that point. And ultimately it was the work of God and

Jinger (35:00.576)
the mercy of God that he put up with anything that he did because it was not easy. It definitely was not easy for him to gain the approval of my dad. And I think that was something in the setting of Bill Gothard where you had a say as a woman, like as a girl, like who you wanted to marry. And at the same time, I think that it was very heavily parental involvement to the point where even me

Aaron Smith (35:27.8)
final approval went

Aaron Smith (35:29.614)
through the parents.

Jinger (35:29.648)
as a

Jinger (35:30.389)
22 year old girl, yeah, you had to have the blessing in a very specific way. And I think also to add to that, I will say we were in the public eye. So we had tons of guys who would come around and were interested. And so if you were an outsider and you didn’t already know our family, then that made it more difficult. So I had some, we had a couple of people who married into the family who were friends of our family and

Aaron Smith (35:43.293)
yeah.

Jinger (35:56.63)
That happened, and it can be a different dynamic because they know us, but these outsiders, it’s like, why do you want to be married into the family? Yeah, because your wedding’s gonna be televised, you’re gonna be on TV. Is that a motivation to drive? And Jeremy, it wasn’t. I mean, he was in professional soccer. He had that exposure already and wasn’t running after it. He decided to retire and go into ministry.

Aaron Smith (36:00.014)
.

Aaron Smith (36:06.156)
Yeah, what are the ulterior motives? If there is any.

Aaron Smith (36:16.322)
Mm-hmm.

Jinger (36:22.344)
after just four years of playing professionally. So you could see his heart was not in that place. So there were just a lot of dynamics to it. And he was a very, very kind, respectful, patient man. And I think that’s really what attracted me to him was I knew it was not easy to get into my family with 10 brothers and my dad, all these, you have to go through a lot of guys. And…

Jinger (36:50.196)
At the end of the day, I think that his character won and they saw, okay, even if we have little differences on theology where we don’t see eye to eye, I know that you’re going to share the true gospel with people, that you want sinners to know the loving forgiveness of Christ and that’s something that I think they could see at the end of the day. And they knew that Jeremy was not just putting on a show, but he…

Jinger (37:18.356)
wanted more than anything to know Christ and to make him know.

Aaron Smith (37:22.018)
love that. Men listening. This is a huge thing that the first thing I thought of when she was mentioning what Jeremy was doing going through those videos with his were you engaged or soon to be engaged? Okay, before you engage.

Jinger (37:34.06)
before we were engaged. Yeah, we couldn’t

Jinger (37:35.949)
get engaged until we went through most of them.

Aaron Smith (37:38.146)
He was taking an opportunity to wash you with the Word. I was just thinking of Ephesians 5, Jesus Christ, he washes us with the Word by the water with the Word and he wasn’t just giving you his opinions or his ideas. He was hearing these things and saying, where does it say that? In Scripture. Where does the Word of God tell us this? And that is such a huge thing that we could do for our families if we don’t know anything. We say, what does the Word say?

Jinger (37:41.432)
Mm-hmm. You like? Yeah.

Jinger (38:01.088)
Yes,

Jinger (38:02.849)
yes and that’s the thing and also I will say I was slower to change on some of these things even outward stuff right so he never forced me to do anything or never was like well you can see that in the Bible why don’t you just why don’t we just live our lives like that.

Jinger (38:22.388)
Even over these eight years, he’s been so patient with me because there are some things that are very hard for me to change on. And I will, even though I see it and not in the Bible, something that was like, you know, it’s like a silly, silly legalistic thing and I just can’t get past it. He has not been like, well, this is what we’re doing.

Aaron Smith (38:28.419)
Yeah.

Jinger (38:43.004)
And it’s been like this patient guiding and leading me. And that ultimately was at the end of the day, what I realized was like, this is just the mercy of God that I was led by such a gentle leader. He’s a strong, strong leader as far as when it comes to like standing up against people who are not speaking truth, all those things that need to be said. But at the same time, it’s like he is the most caring and patient and

Jinger (39:09.004)
good listener, for anybody who may be in that situation with a spouse or somebody who was raised in a really strict setting, just that patience and loving care over time. You may not always agree on everything and you may not change overnight, but that patience really…

Jinger (39:30.72)
has helped me to grow more and to flourish in my own faith and to want to examine the word of God for myself because I was like, I want to know what God’s word says, but it’s also hard to come to reality with some of those things that you thought were core tenets of Christianity and they aren’t. So he’s been very patient and kind in how he’s led me. And so that’s another thing I just have to throw in there.

Aaron Smith (39:48.099)
Yeah.

Aaron Smith (39:54.166)
Yeah, no, I love that. What it makes me think of is the Bible uses the word circumcision for this, but the circumcision of Christ, some of these things like we can, like a very top level, like, I can change the way I think about that. And then there’s a lot of other things that are deeper that Christ actually needs to go in and surgically remove from us. I also love, I feel like this is a very good lesson for us as parents having the same demeanor with our children.

Jinger (40:00.45)
Yeah.

Jinger (40:13.26)
Yeah. Right.

Aaron Smith (40:24.046)
patience with them, allowing the Holy Spirit to work in them, being consistent with the Word of God and pointing them to the truth, but letting the Holy Spirit work in them and trusting God with their hearts, all while doing as you can to protect their minds, protect their eyes, you know, to the best of your ability. so the thing I want to, I would love to kind of finish off on is, so your book’s called People Pleaser and it’s about your journey of

Jinger (40:30.976)
Yeah.

Jinger (40:40.248)
Yeah.

Aaron Smith (40:52.302)
breaking free from pleasing people to pleasing God and the very different mindsets that those are and heart postures. And I would just love you to dig into that because the verse that came to mind was Galatians 1-10, for am I now seeking the approval of man or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Aaron Smith (41:15.03)
And there’s things that you mentioned about, you know, desiring to please your husband, desiring to make him happy, desiring… and on the legalistic side of like, you did that out of a fear. But it’s not like you don’t want to do those things, correct? So tell me that transition of like going from people pleasing and desiring to do these rules-based things over here to what you see God doing and the freedom there is now.

Jinger (41:27.714)
Right. Right.

Jinger (41:39.5)
Right, well I think that the distinction is, we realize, okay, we were designed for community, it’s not a bad thing. We were designed to be in community with God, with one another. He created Adam and then He created Eve because they need a companionship. And so this is a beautiful thing in the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit, have the Trinity is another example of that. So community is not bad.

Jinger (42:07.678)
And I think that it was skewed at the fall. see that sin destroys. And so there will be broken relationships. There will be things that are really hard that we face in this life because of the fall. And at the end of the day, we can say, okay, well, we don’t want to please people. So some people go to the extreme saying, okay, well, I’m not gonna be a people pleaser. And so then they’re just gonna speak their mind. They’re gonna run over people.

Aaron Smith (42:35.822)
care.

Jinger (42:36.056)
they’re going to be very

Aaron Smith (42:36.168)

Jinger (42:36.748)
unkind or you have those in the church who are serial servers. They’re doing everything to please everyone because they want the approval.

Jinger (42:45.2)
and detention. So they’re going to be serving communion. They’re going to be playing the piano, printing the bulletins, serving in children’s ministry, and then their own families falling apart. So that’s one side of people pleasing. And then there’s another side of people pleasing where it’s like isolation. You see those who isolate themselves because they don’t want anybody to see who they truly are or what they’re actually struggling with. So they won’t share their faults and failures. They won’t go to a small group or find accountability with somebody because they’re afraid of what that person might think of them.

Jinger (43:15.124)
we can see that people pleasing in those ways it’s wrong and we need to understand what bad people pleasing is and then we need to understand the solution. So the solution is it’s ultimately people pleasing but it’s it’s to please others from a place where we are fulfilled.

Jinger (43:33.042)
who we are in Christ no longer are we coming to relationships to gain their approval or acceptance or to drain them dry of everything we feel like we’re not satisfied in. I need you because you provide finances for me. I need you because you have celebrity status. I need you because you give me something that I’m craving. No longer

Jinger (43:56.926)
are we actually going to enter relationships like that? Because if we’re looking at others thinking, how can I love and serve you from a place of fulfillment where I’m satisfied in who I am in Christ, I know who I am in Christ, and so therefore I can go out and serve and love you, and I can share my faults and failures with you because I know that that’s a loving thing to do, then you can be a listening ear to others. You can share your life with them. You can come alongside one another, pray for one another, encourage one another.

Jinger (44:26.156)
but not out of a selfish motive. And I think that’s where everything shifts. It’s the heart motive. And it can be easy to just want like a solution, like, okay, give us all the steps again, right? Like we like steps, but at the end of the day, we have to realize each person is gonna have to come before the Lord and ask him, okay, Lord, how have I been doing? Why have I been serving in the church? Why am I doing this activity?

Aaron Smith (44:39.934)
The are great.

Jinger (44:53.482)
Is this something that’s pleasing to you? Or am I doing this to gain the acceptance and approval of others? And so I think that that is, that’s where we come back to see that there can be freedom from people pleasing, that God will give us help to break free from those patterns. And a lot of it starts in our mind. It starts in the thoughts that come into our head when we walk into a room where we know no one, what are they thinking of me? Are they approving of me? Am I going to be accepted here? Or in a mom group?

Aaron Smith (45:09.166)
and

Jinger (45:22.6)
no, I didn’t bring my organic food today and this mom’s all organic over here. Let me just hide my Cheerios in the bag and wait till we get out to the car to feed my kid the goldfish because I don’t want her to that I fed that to my child. So there can be people pleasing in many different ways, but ultimately it’s like at the end of the day, we need to be able to come into relationships saying, okay.

Aaron Smith (45:26.765)
Hmm.

Jinger (45:45.322)
I want to love you and serve you. I’m not trying to gain anything from you. And I think that that gives us more of an opportunity to live an authentic life in front of others where even as believers, like I said, in the Bill Gothard setting, it was all about keeping up the front, keeping up the circus act, giving out your face, like always a smile.

Aaron Smith (46:01.453)
Yeah.

Jinger (46:05.248)
I’m rejoicing at all times. I’m rejoicing when you ask me how I’m doing. But then also realizing, no, there are times to mourn and cry. There are times to pray together, share struggles. And that’s something that’s difficult in the body of Christ to do. And so when we’re not so on guard in that way, we’re able to actually love and serve others, allow them to serve us, which is hard as a people pleaser. And that’s the most freeing and joyful thing that we can do.

Aaron Smith (46:32.65)
And so ultimately the mind shift, the heart shift is who are you doing it for? Right? Yeah.

Jinger (46:39.608)
The motivation because if

Jinger (46:41.53)
we don’t have a motivation of wanting to love and to have others to see Christ in everything that we’re doing if we’re looking for their approval for us That’s gonna last so long even on social media. We see it. You’re gonna get a like you’re gonna get an amazing comment if you live or die on that

Aaron Smith (46:51.982)
Mm.

Aaron Smith (46:58.67)
That feels good.

Jinger (47:01.398)
Great, like you can have your podcast and then if somebody, you’ll have 10 amazing comments and then you’ll have one hateful one. Well that one hateful one will make you wanna shut down the podcast because it’s like, why am I giving anybody the time of day? So all of that, we can live or die on criticism on.

Jinger (47:18.518)
all of those things and we have to say, well, who am I doing it for? What is the motivation? Are they seeing Christ? Is this the season where God wants me to be doing this or do I need to back away from some responsibilities? But if we’re holding everything with an empty, like an open hand, then God will make that clear in his timing. And so I think that’s also part of the people pleasing way is like, we just need to make sure that whatever doing is out of motivation to love God, to make him known.

Jinger (47:47.87)
and not to drain others dry for what we feel like we need.

Aaron Smith (47:51.726)
That’s beautiful. Ginger, I really appreciate you sharing your heart and your story, which I know for a fact God’s still writing. know you’ve found a lot of freedom in your people-pleasing and way you were raised, but God’s still working on you. He’s still working on me. all in this journey as believers of sanctification. Sanctification is such a beautiful thing because it’s fully done the moment you believe in Christ, and it’s continually happening until you meet Him one day.

Jinger (48:11.607)
Amen.

Jinger (48:20.596)
Yes,

Aaron Smith (48:21.674)
And

Jinger (48:22.128)
that is so true.

Aaron Smith (48:23.515)
that’s our story. I think you give a lot of hope to… I’m sure there’s a lot of my listeners that are… you touched that little cheerio analogy. I’m sure there’s a lot of moms that are like, my gosh, I do that. But we can all point those things out. In our flesh, are constantly… we’re always trying to protect our flesh. That’s what the flesh wants to do. Feed it, protect it, make it feel good. And then the Holy Spirit’s like, well…

Jinger (48:34.624)
Yes.

Aaron Smith (48:51.118)
Sometimes you need to do the opposite of what your flesh wants. Actually, often you need to do the opposite. We’re all on this journey together as Christians trying to grow closer to Christ, allowing Him to change us, transform us, and we sometimes need to just ask Him, as David did in the Psalms, search me and know me. Tell me if there’s any wicked way in me. What ways in me that I’m believing wrong, thinking wrong, and allow Him to work that way. So just thank you for your encouragement. Your new book, can you tell us where to get it? I know it’s out now.

Jinger (49:19.96)
Yes.

Jinger (49:21.06)
Yeah, so my new book, People Pleaser, is out. It’s available wherever books are sold. I also recorded the audiobook. If you’re a busy parent in that season of life where you don’t have time to open up a hard copy, I gotcha. That’s the season of life I’m in. So the audiobook is recorded for you. So yeah, I encourage you if you’re a People Pleaser or recovering People Pleaser or know somebody who is, you can grab that book or audiobook for them and hopefully it will be a blessing to you.

Aaron Smith (49:50.122)
Ginger, you so much. By the way, I love audiobooks. prefer it that way. And I love it when the author reads it. It’s just so much more special. Ginger, I that you just continue to grow and encourage people to not be people-pleasers. And thank you so much for being on the show.

Jinger (50:04.223)
Thank you so much for having me, Aaron.