Are My Eyes Shiny Enough?
“Are my eyes shiny enough?” I would think as I smiled in the mirror, trying to get that bright sparkle that Mr.Gothard said could change the world. When important leaders saw the shining eyes of the young people in our program, it made them want to have that program in their country as well.
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Oversimplified, as so many things are, my parents raised me with, “Let us explain a general idea of what we would like for your life what we would like you to do. Here are the basic tools to do it: go do it, and let us know if you need any help.”
Actually, that kind of worked absolutely perfectly for my personality. It didn’t work so great with my other siblings because they have different personalities, and my parents had to figure something else out. My mom had a lot of health problems, so when homeschooling, she wasn’t able to do everything step-by-step with me, but she always explained the basic idea, made sure I understood it (or as much as I could understand it) and then was like, “Hey, if you need any help just let me know.”
I loved it because I had so much freedom to explore and do it my way (I love my way by the way) and it worked perfectly for school. It worked perfectly when I moved to Brazil and the Director was pretty much the same: “Here’s what I’d like you to do Rachel, come back to me and let me know how it went. Let us know if you have any trouble.”
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My parents, while raising me, introduced me to something they really appreciated and found useful in their own lives: the Institute of Basic Life Principles (IBLP), run by Bill Gothard. They used his homeschool curriculum, called the Advanced Training Institute (ATI), and we got involved in the different ministries and opportunities they offered. My parents were like, “We’re going to encourage you to go in this direction.” So I went off and bought it hook, line, and sinker.
Counseling Seminar. Yes, I am in there somewhere. Yes, we all wore those clothes.
The basic unwritten plan of ATI (the homeschool curriculum) was that you use it, then you get involved in the programs at different training centers until you are “discovered” and asked to work at one of the training centers. And everyone knew the prettiest and best got asked to go to headquarters in Chicago.
Chalk Art. I did get to be with one of my best friends, so that was a win.
I did the plan. I did it really well. We didn’t just do all the wisdom booklets- we did the extra things, the journals as well. I went to the children’s institutes, the Knoxville seminars, the counseling courses, Sound Foundations for music, chart art, and finally, a yearlong program called EQUIP. When they asked me to write a ten-page paper, I wrote two ten-page papers. I wore all the right clothes, even though they made me look like a potato sack. I watched as friend after friend of mine was asked to go to various training centers. They never asked me.
Unflattering light didn’t help the unflattering clothes at all.
After EQUIP finished, I didn’t know what to do with myself. The plan was clearly to work at a training center. But you couldn’t unless you were asked. I figured out a way around the system: I lived at home and drove to the training center, brought my own lunch which I ate in my car, and went home every day. From 7am to 3pm. For free (if and how anyone was paid at the training centers, I certainly didn’t know about it).
At the Indianapolis Training center, they half-heartedly tried to find someplace for me to fit in. After six months, I finally moved on. I found other things. I started working at the Youth Center (where I ended up meeting my husband) and started taking mission’s classes at a local Bible college (which was part of what led to me going to Brazil).
I don’t know how many times I asked myself, “What is wrong with me?” Probably as many times as I tried to make my eyes all shiny when I smiled. I knew I was a hard worker. I knew I was decently good at whatever I put my mind to. The only thing I could come up with, for why they didn’t ask for my free labor at a training center, was that I wasn’t pretty enough. That was the only difference I could see between me and all of the girls who had been asked.
As I followed the whole “Don’t draw attention to yourself- do your devotions rather than makeup in the morning” kind of rules, I noticed it was the curled hair, done up faces that were asked to be a part of things. No cleavage, no slits in the skirts meant a perpetual potato sack for someone like me who had a large chest. It was the petit, thin girls who were chosen. Even after being reprimanded for their clothes, those who didn’t “potato-sack it” were the ones chosen. Instead of noticing the double standard, I just kept thinking it was something wrong with me.
With the help of hindsight, I can see that if I’d been asked to go to a training center after EQUIP, I would have, and served for free for years and years until I was a bitter, burnt-out person with nothing to show for it. I am so glad that I wasn’t chosen. I am so glad that following the rules made me not “pretty enough.” I also think it was just not the plan God had for me, so He didn’t let it happen, even when I tried so hard.
My biggest regret with ATI wasn’t how it affected me, because I have been able to learn many things and work through issues, and come away pretty unscathed. It was how buying into it hook, line, and sinker affected how I treated others. Specifically, my sister, who is six years younger than I. There was a time that I decided that I was going to do whatever it took to help her do all the stuff you were supposed to do, and she was going to succeed, gosh darn it. I honestly just wanted her to be happy and healthy—and I thought that the ATI way was the way to do it.
I cringe and cry when I think of how I tried to force a set of rules on her that were not helpful or healthy. How I tried to break her will to something “better.” I was so shocked when she lashed out at me. I was so confused when we both really tried—and it didn’t work. They promised it would work: and it didn’t.
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It is interesting to me how it all…just kind of went away. It took time (I looked like a potato sack for many more years, I still struggle with being judgmental, and I am still detangling things), but when I got involved in other things, it was like Bill Gothard just melted away. The strength of it all was in keeping everything else out. Once I got involved in my neighborhood, my city, my church (that wasn’t ATI dominated), and missions, the bad stuff I had gained from IBLP didn’t have any power anymore.
There is a new documentary on Amazon Prime called “Shiny Happy People.” Specifically it is about the Duggar family, but it then expands to all of Bill Gothard’s ministry, and tries to go further to all homeschooling, conservative Christians, but mostly just returns to the Duggar family.
There is a lot of interesting things brought up in the documentary. there were a lot of things that I was nodding my head to, “Yep, that was there, and that was there…” The documentary definitely had its flaws and agendas and of course you’re not going to agree with all of it. I appreciated what Alex Harris wrote for the Gospel Coalition.
But as I watched, I knew I needed to dig back into that part of my history about a few things. Because I was still feeling some feelings, and now I know that it doesn’t mean to feel bad or scared that I am “giving ground to the devil,” it means to take those feelings to Jesus and work through them as real and valid emotions.
The documentary focus is on Jill Duggar, who is still deep in the throws of processing and pain and trauma, but it was more helpful for me to read the book by her sister, Jinger Duggar, who has taken the past many years to specifically and carefully detangle the principles and applications and root problems of the Bill Gothard ministry and rebuild a strong foundation on the Lord (and be truly “Biblically based” which is a trigger word from our past). I am working on getting to some specific issues HERE.
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Oversimplified, as so many things are, I am so glad that ATI didn’t really work for me and my family. I am so grateful for getting to go back and make things right with those I hurt through how I applied the things I learned from Bill Gothard. I am overjoyed with what it is actually like to walk with Christ and learn how much I don’t know, and how we don’t have all the answers. Knowing all the answers was really exhausting.