Michelle Duggar has never been one to speak out of turn or let the creepy Stepford Wife perma-grin vanish from her face.
We don’t know how Michelle would be punished for her sins if she were to defy her husband and express an opinion, but we get the feeling it would involve that Game of Thrones nun with the Shame Bell.
The point is, you know a conflict has gotten serious when Michelle feels the need to throw in her two cents, especially since we’re pretty sure Duggar women aren’t allowed to handle money.
The situation that’s got Michelle’s attention this week involves an alleged feud between Duggar siblings.
Fans noticed last week that Jinger and Jill Duggar do not follow one another on social media.
Equally interesting is that the ladies don’t follow one another’s husbands, and Jeremy Vuolo and Derick Dillard don’t follow Jill and Jinger, respectively.
Clearly, there’s some bad blood between the couples, and some deep-digging Internet sleuths believe they’ve unearthed the cause of the conflict.
Vuolo makes his living as a minister these days (In that way he’s different from the other Duggar husbands, who don’t work at all.), and it seems he has some problems with the showy brand of missionary work that seems to benefit the missionaries more than those they’ve pledged to serve.
In a recent sermon, Vuolo derided such workers as “unqualified, uncalled, unconfirmed, and unsent zealots.”
“They’re just Lone Ranger types running around solo asking churches for money to support them,” Vuolo said.
“They don’t want to work to support themselves, give themselves to study, or give themselves to the necessary abandoning of comfort required to do damage to your flesh.”
The Dillards have been criticized as unqualified for missionary work several times in the past, often from those pointing out that they failed to complete the necessary certification work.
We assume that when his sermon was concluded, Jeremy dropped the mic and strode triumphantly off stage, a la Eminem at the end of 8 Mile.
Add that to the fact that Jill and Derick begged for money from fans last year and were widely castigated as a result, and it’s not hard to see why the whole thing is such a sensitive subject.
In fact, Derick is so touchy on the matter that it looks as though he went ahead and unfollowed Jeremy, leading to a veritable avalanche of social passive-aggression.
The whole thing was enough to prompt Michelle to offer her take on the situation (without naming names, of course) in a blog post entitled “The Root of Bitterness.”
“Having bitterness in our spirit robs us of life’s most beautiful moments. Comparing ourselves to others, envy, and jealousy all lead down to a road of bitterness.”
Michelle concluded by encouraging her son-in-laws to focus on the similarities in their religious beliefs, rather than the differences:
“One thing we must do as Christians is to pray that bitterness finds no place in our hearts. Let’s choose joy!” she wrote.
Pretty good handling of the situation from Michelle.
Maybe Jim Bob should sit back and let her take charge a little more often.
Watch Counting On online for more of Michelle’s Mothering Moments.