Duggars Stand Their Ground: How Far Would You Go to Uphold Your Beliefs?

I was reading the Duggar's book again and came across the part where they owned their mini-mart and decided to stop selling cigarettes. It was a huge part of their income, but at the same time, what was it teaching their son, who was always in his play pen behind the counter? Cutting their income and making a mockery of what a mini-mart is--and losing a partnership--they stood up for their convictions and decided not to sell cigarettes. They didn't want to be hypocrites to their child--don't smoke, but watch us sell them to people all day long. They were at the same time grateful they didn't have to sell liquor, for at the time in Arkansas, you had to go to a liquor store to buy liquor.

Soon after, they made another decision to sell their towing business, even though it was making them a very good income. Why? It was keeping Jim Bob away from their family. As soon as dinner would be ready, sure enough the beeper would go off and he'd have to go off to pick up a car. So they prayed about it and decided that even though it was supporting them, their family life was more important.

These events got me to thinking to some things that have happened to them lately. Once again, I'll remind you, I don't do investigative reporting, I only write what I remember. But when Michelle was reported to have protested the issuance of a liquor license to a mini-mart near her home soon after Josie was born, people were up in arms. However, in my estimation, history shows this to be right in true Duggar form. Michelle has 18 other children, not just Josie and she is mother to ALL of them, not just Josie. To her, having liquor sold so near their home so "easily" (in their opinion) was important to the safety of their ENTIRE family. So she exercised her rights as an American citizen and let her opinion be known before the board who issues the license.

By choosing to home school, rather than send her children to public school, they are taking a verse from the Bible about "train up your children" and using the literal translation to teach their kids at home. Being the mother of a 3 year old I am still tussling with the notion of home school. I am dreading the thought of putting her in the California school system--sorry but right now it is in the throws of economic crisis and it seems unfair to punish her for the government's inability to balance a budget and care for our children's education. I'm the product of public school, but a rather well-funded one--most years--some years we had to fight to get the bugets passed. We can't afford private school and there is no private Jewish school where we live, so a private school would have to be one that wasn't religious and offer massive scholarships. So I'm back to home schooling and again, I find that very daunting. I've made no secret to my laziness--would I make a good home school mom? Could I really pick up the torch and do this for my child if push came to shove?

By merely putting their family on camera and showing their faith to the world they are in a way, saying to nay-sayers--we get it, you don't care for our life-style, but what you have to say isn't what matters, what the Bible says and what G-d says is what matters. They have focused on their faith and set their lives in motion by following that faith. How many of us have that kind of courage to give up our lives to any faith that strong?

By watching the Duggars we can ask ourselves a lot of questions in our daily lives. Even if we don't share the same faith, the same political beliefs, the same ecological beliefs--we can still glean a lot of perspective from them. How far would you go to stand up for what you believe in, no matter what that "what" is?