On May 4, just days after her brother, 33-year-old Josh Duggar was arrested and charged with receiving and possessing child pornography, Jinger Duggar Vuolo and her husband Jeremy Vuolo released their book, “The Hope We Hold: Finding Peace in the Promises of God.”
The book is a simultaneous look at both Jinger and Jeremy’s lives from before, during, and after they met. However, people who have already begun reading the book, I included, were revetted by Chapter 8, in particular, given what the Duggar family is currently enduring.
Jinger Duggar Vuolo Talks About Josh Duggar’s 2015 Scandal in Book She Wrote With Husband Jeremy Vuolo
The Hope We Hold: Finding Peace in the Promises of God
$21.99 at the time of publication
Chapter 8 is titled, Strategic Visits, and it is about the moment the world learned about a time in Josh’s childhood that, in Jinger’s words, had already been “dealt with and made our peace with.”
In 2015, it was revealed that Josh Duggar, as a teenager, has molested four of his younger sisters and a childhood friend. According to an interview with Megyn Kelly, Jim Bob Duggar said this:
“He said he was just curious about girls and he had gone in and just basically touched them over their clothes while they were sleeping; they didn’t even know he had done it,” Jim Bob told Kelly before later admitting in the same interview, that Josh did also violate the girls by touching them under their clothes.
Legally, Josh was never punished for his actions. However, in that same 2015 interview, Jim Bob said, “We watched him like all the time, I took him to work with me. We just poured our life into him. Nothing ever happened like that again in the girls’ bedrooms after that.”
The Hope We Hold: Finding Peace in the Promises of God
$21.99 at the time of publication
Jinger opened up about reliving that moment, publicly, in her book. Jinger, who has not come out as one of her brother’s victims, recalled her hands shaking as she packed a suitcase in the dead of night hours after the news broke.
“Earlier that day, Dad had gathered my siblings and me to tell us that the word trial in our family, a rail we had long since dealt with and made our peace with, was now public knowledge. Intimate details about our lives were splashed across a magazine page and all over the internet for anyone and everyone to read.”
Jinger Duggar, The Hope We Hold
Jinger compared that moment of realization to a bomb exploding that left her dazed and living in a nightmare she wished wasn’t real. “One of my siblings had made some sinful choice,” she wrote, choosing not to write Josh’s name. “But it has all been years ago. It had been awful, but we had dealt with it as a family. …Now that it was out in public, the old wound was open again, raw, painful.”
RELATED: Josh Duggar Won’t Be Allowed to Return Home If Given Bail, So Where Will He Go?
The Hope We Hold: Finding Peace in the Promises of God
$21.99 at the time of publication
She described their family evading the flashes of paparazzi cameras as they loaded up the family bus to escape to a place that has “plenty of land to run around outside without anyone seeing us.” It was described as “the perfect place to escape.”
Jinger admitted she feared that she would never be able to move forward now that details of her life she had never wanted to share were public knowledge. She prayed for guidance. And if you could only guess what happened next, Jinger and Jeremy would meet with romance on the mind for the first time just weeks later.
Now, the couple is married with two children. And sadly, enduring more uncertainty as their older brother sits in jail.
Josh has been accused of allegedly using the internet to download images of child sexual abuse. “Some of which depicts the sexual abuse of children under the age of 12, in May 2019,” the press release revealed.
In a statement released by Jinger and Jeremy, they wrote that they will let the justice system reveal the truth. “We are disturbed to hear of the charges against Josh. While this case must go through the legal system, we want to make it clear that we absolutely condemn any form of child abuse and fully support the authorities and judicial process in their pursuit of justice.”
The Hope We Hold: Finding Peace in the Promises of God
$21.99 at the time of publication
You can buy their book on Amazon, now.
Mamas Uncut is THE online place for moms. We cover the latest about motherhood, parenting, and entertainment as well – all with a mom-focused twist. So if you're looking for parenting advice from real parents, we have plenty of it, all for moms from moms, and also experts. Because, at the end of the day, our mission is focused solely on empowering moms and moms-to-be with the knowledge and answers they’re looking for in one safe space.