How grace broke the chains of control in my home and heart
“We are responsible to each other, not for each other.”
— Jeff VanVonderen, Families Where Grace Is in Place
I don’t remember the exact year or even where we were living at the time. But I know it was somewhere between 2007 and 2009 when I picked up a book that would change everything: Families Where Grace Is in Place by Jeff VanVonderen.
I didn’t know it then, but those pages were about to unravel everything I thought I believed about parenting, marriage, and faith.
Before Grace
At the time, I was a stay-at-home wife and a homeschooling mom of ten. Number eleven would arrive later. I was also a preacher’s wife. My husband and I were fully immersed in Independent Fundamental Baptist ministry. We pastored churches, traveled as evangelists, and held revival meetings across the country.
We were loyal. Passionate. Zealous. And convinced we were right.
We preached that having a television was sinful. That women wearing pants was sinful. That too much makeup was sinful—though a little was allowed, so long as it didn’t “draw attention.” I sewed all my own dresses and wore my hair long—though thanks to my hormones, it rarely got far past my shoulders.
We were strict with our children. They had no phones, no TV (because we didn’t own one), no outside friends, no sports. We believed all of those things would lead to sin. We even pulled our oldest son out of college once, convinced he was living “outside the umbrella” of parental authority.
We spanked often. Sometimes for small things. Sometimes for nothing more than an attitude. Every day, we sat our kids down and taught them right from wrong. We drilled obedience into them—not from a place of love, but fear. Fear that if they messed up, it would reflect badly on us. That we’d look like failures. That God would be disappointed.
When we lived in Iowa, I made my girls wear skirts over their snowsuits just to play outside. When we went swimming, it was always in remote places. The girls swam in culottes. The boys wore jeans. My children weren’t allowed to have their own opinions or make their own decisions.
They were born walking on eggshells—and we made sure those eggshells never cracked.
The Book
I don’t recall how I ended up with Families Where Grace Is in Place. Maybe someone passed it to me. Perhaps I picked it up on a whim. But as I began reading, the words leaped off the page. Sentence after sentence felt like someone had opened a window I didn’t even know was there.
The book talked about how families fall into cycles of control, pressure, and manipulation—often in the name of love or righteousness. It spoke of the deep weariness that comes from trying to meet impossible standards. The perfectionism. The fear of failure.
That was us. Especially with so many children, we constantly felt watched, judged, and evaluated. Our theology was built on performance. And we were exhausted.
Then came a line that hit me in the chest:
“We are responsible to each other, not for each other.”
It undid me. All at once, I saw the truth. I wasn’t parenting out of love—I was parenting out of fear. I wasn’t guiding my husband—I was trying to control him. And he was trying to control me. Together, we had built a family that looked good on the outside but was suffocating on the inside.
The book painted a different vision: one where grace replaced fear. Where children were free to make decisions and mistakes. Where love didn’t mean control. Where acceptance was not conditional on perfection.
And something inside me shifted.
The Bridge
As I read, I had one aha moment after another.
I realized we were trying so hard to protect our children from the world that we were crushing their spirits. We didn’t want them to sin, so we removed their freedom. We didn’t want them to mess up—so we made every decision for them. We called it holiness. But really, it was fear.
Even our decision to homeschool wasn’t about education. It was about control. About keeping their behavior within a bubbl,e we could manage.
After trying to “homeschool with grace” for a while, I finally admitted the truth: we weren’t equipped. So we enrolled our children in public school.
It wasn’t a seamless transition. One of my daughters started school in her junior year and had to double up on math to catch up. Thankfully, Arkansas accepted her science, history, and English credits. One of my younger girls had to repeat kindergarten because I hadn’t finished the year—we had opened a daycare in our home, and it consumed my time and attention.
My third daughter and fifth son—only a year and a half apart—both entered fourth grade the same year. He had fallen behind under my teaching. I warned the principal to separate them; I knew she’d do all his work if they stayed together. They listened, and the school helped bring him up to speed within that year.
During this season of change, I was also starting to rediscover my own worth. I filed for a restraining order against my abusive husband. For a time, I let him come back—still caught in that old belief that if I just tried harder, he would change. That if I prayed more, obeyed more, submitted more, he would become the man I needed.
But I was beginning to see: you can’t change someone by controlling them. You can’t fix someone who doesn’t want to be fixed.
After Grace
It’s been over 16 years since I read that book. My baby is now a junior in high school. The way I parent him is entirely different than how I raised the others—especially the oldest ones.
I’ve apologized to some of my children. I’ve told them I wish I could go back and do it all differently. And I mean it. I see some of them now, parenting the way I once did—out of fear, trying to control everything. But I don’t lecture. I offer gentle reminders. I try to model something different.
Our family structure isn’t perfect. Our children aren’t perfect. I’m not perfect. One of my sons is in prison. That hurts to say. But even in that, grace remains. We no longer try to control each other. We don’t panic when we see a child or sibling making choices we wouldn’t make. We offer love. We offer space.
And we let go.
Letting go is hard. Watching someone you love repeat mistakes you’ve already made is hard. Trusting grace instead of fear is hard.
But control?
Control is harder.
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