Kindred Grace contributor married at 17- Jessiqua (MERGED)

[Grimalkin]

I can try. So about the first third of it covers her family's slide into poverty-- her father has some sort of health issue and they end up living on an isolated, wooded lot in a trailer that they literally got for free on Craigslist (the roof's a little caved in, but it's still good!) They don't have water or electricity or heat for a while. During this time Jessiqua has been praying for her future husband and she is starting to have very literal visions about what he looks like, what he's doing right now, etc. She has a premonition that she will meet him at a church retreat, and is very distraught when the retreat comes and goes and the only man she has met is this guy well into his thirties who her friend is creeped out by.

After the retreat her parents start asking her about the guy and asking her more questions about her visions of her future husband. Soon they invite him to dinner for an awkward set up. Her parents ask her to leave the room so they can ask him some questions about her, they have a long conversation that they won't tell her about afterwards. Soon he starts calling the house regularly and speaking to her parents; she only finds out later that they have been talking about her marriage prospects.

He invites the family to his church where he preaches a sermon about Rebecca and Isaac (an older man marrying a young woman). Jessiqua starts to take an interest in him with the idea that he might know or lead her to her future husband, but she doesn't like the idea of marrying him. However, her parents keep bringing it up and a few months later they are courting. She finds out that this dude magically has a lot in common with the premonitions that she's been having-- and that her parents have been telling him about those premonitions in great detail.

There's a lot of blah blah blah about meeting the family and the proposal. Her friends are shocked by the engagement and disapprove of the age difference. The wedding seems weirdly rushed-- they don't start decorating the church until the morning of, and her father has to drive to another state to get some stuff at the last minute? She doesn't seem to have any idea who has and hasn't been invited to the wedding? Anyway, she's frightened at overwhelmed at first, her father officiates (while dressed like a scraggly hippie), and it's all over before she knows it. Two months later she's pregnant-- and dealing with "crazy teenage hormones" at the same time! Now she's a stay-at-home mom who writes Christian apocalyptic fantasy novels in her spare time.

Nailed it.

[jerkit]

Someone please explain the clothing choices. I HAVE TO KNOW.

[browncoatslytherin]

Someone please explain the clothing choices. I HAVE TO KNOW.

from what i can tell, they look to be of the fake jew variety

[jerkit]

from what i can tell, they look to be of the fake jew variety

Yes but that does not explain the dad's beanie and chains hanging off his pants!

[browncoatslytherin]

Yes but that does not explain the dad's beanie and chains hanging off his pants!

oh that :P

i dunno, she references her dad being ill, mostly it being pain but i wonder if there's something else going on with him.

[hoipolloi]

Gretchen: WTF? :shock: :o :pink-shock:

Are you SERIOUSLY holding up someone like Jessiqua as a role model for your readers? Someone who is married off at age 17 to a creeping 34-year-old after he connives with her parents to "court" her?

Really, Gretchen? This is now the kind of shite that Kindred Spirits is pushing?

Observation: I'd really like to know why Gretchen thinks someone like Jessiqua is A-OK for the Kindred Grace team but Natalie Nyquist was not.

[FeministShrew]

Sweet Jesus on a jetplane, what did I just read? This whole thing is so fucked up. And Dad looks younger than Hubby. I thought he was the groom until I read the caption "Daddy & me."

[browncoatslytherin]

Sweet Jesus on a jetplane, what did I just read? This whole thing is so fucked up. And Dad looks younger than Hubby. I thought he was the groom until I read the caption "Daddy & me."

the groom looks like a fakeass chris benoit. :pink-shock: seriously, the resemblance is uncanny.

[childerowland]

The dad is dressed like a cat burglar and the groom looks like he forgot to take off his dressing gown. I don't normally snark on peoples' clothing, but these outfits are laugh out loud funny.

The whole story is deeply disturbing. It's kind of like reading the memoirs of a Victorian girl, who knows that she HAS to marry at some point (for money, respectability etc.), so just goes with the first man who meets her basic criteria. It's clear that the parents were very much in favour of this relationship, so how much choice did the girl have? They could at least have encouraged her to wait until she was 18.

And this guy already had children - so she was expected, at the age of 17, to parent an 11-year-old and a 12-year-old?! What must they have thought of the arrangement?

[NachosFlandersStyle]

The dad is dressed like a cat burglar and the groom looks like he forgot to take off his dressing gown. I don't normally snark on peoples' clothing, but these outfits are laugh out loud funny.

The whole story is deeply disturbing. It's kind of like reading the memoirs of a Victorian girl, who knows that she HAS to marry at some point (for money, respectability etc.), so just goes with the first man who meets her basic criteria. It's clear that the parents were very much in favour of this relationship, so how much choice did the girl have? They could at least have encouraged her to wait until she was 18.

And this guy already had children - so she was expected, at the age of 17, to parent an 11-year-old and a 12-year-old?! What must they have thought of the arrangement?

I would LOVE to read this story from their perspective. What must the daughter have thought, especially? She has a post on the general awkwardness of the arrangement here: kindredgrace.com/my-son/

[salex]

I'm actually surprised that there aren't more teenage fundie marriages, given their obsession with "purity. " The fear of teenage girls having sex and dishonoring their male relatives is the rationale of marrying off girls the moment they hit puberty, from classical Athens to modern-day Yemen. In the US, teen marriage has fallen out of favor even among fundies (aside from really fringe groups like the FLDS), but it seems that the marriage meat market begins the minute girls turn 18.

Oh that is an ongoing discussion at on the Theonomist facebook group (N. Darnell is one of the owners of the group)

This guy says marry before 20.

"> Young Marriage

How young should people get married?

Hide

We think that if people are honest with themselves, they really already know the answer to this question. When do boys become men and girls become women? When are their bodies developed enough to have children? When do they begin to develop romantic interest in the opposite sex, and when does fornication begin to become an issue?

The Bible provides many reasons for marriage, and most if not all of them demonstrate that marriage typically ought to happen in the youth (as in, before the age of 20).

We also quote some old commentators (Calvin, Gill, Luther) who assign particular age ranges to clarify what we should already know to be “youthâ€. (Seriously, most churches today have “youth groupsâ€, which are for their teenage population.) And we generally agree with these men. John Calvin defines the “flower of her age†(1 Corinthians 7:36) as “from twelve to twenty years of ageâ€. Likewise, John Gill defines it as “one of twelve years and a half oldâ€. And Martin Luther says, “A young man should marry at the age of twenty at the latest, a young woman at fifteen to eighteen…†We do not endorse marriage at ages as young as these for everyone, but we are certainly in agreement that marriage (in order to be timely and to accomplish its purposes) ought to happen before the age of twenty for most."

truelovedoesntwait.com/faq/

He has drawn some theonomist disagreement on some of his ideas, which appear to boil down to "old enough to bleed, old enough to breed."

[Milly-Molly-Mandy]

Wow I wish drugs had been left on the ground at uni! But that stuffs expensive and we were poor uni students...nor did we take drugs while AT uni but saved it for weekends. Hmmm....calling shenanigans on that story ;)

[salex]

Does anyone know Jessiqua's maiden name. I skimmed more of her blog than I should have and didn't see it.

What I really want is her father's first and last if anyone gleaned it. I want to know what he was getting all these awards for at the university in KS where he was teaching. Their homeless shelter they worked with seems to have been in Wichita, so I'm curious.

As for the wedding garb. It loooks like costumes for a Jr. High play with no budget and one helpful mom with a sewing machine she doesn't know how to use.

As far as the "chains" or braids, are those Dad's idea of a Tzitzit? I thought the xmas lights globbed on the sheets hanging behind the couple added to the "poorly staged pagent" atmosphere, as did the "Police sketch knitted had" on dad. Just get a yarmulke--it will go better with your tzitzit.

[NachosFlandersStyle]

Does anyone know Jessiqua's maiden name. I skimmed more of her blog than I should have and didn't see it.

What I really want is her father's first and last if anyone gleaned it. I want to know what he was getting all these awards for at the university in KS where he was teaching. Their homeless shelter they worked with seems to have been in Wichita, so I'm curious.

As for the wedding garb. It loooks like costumes for a Jr. High play with no budget and one helpful mom with a sewing machine she doesn't know how to use.

As far as the "chains" or braids, are those Dad's idea of a Tzitzit? I thought the xmas lights globbed on the sheets hanging behind the couple added to the "poorly staged pagent" atmosphere, as did the "Police sketch knitted had" on dad. Just get a yarmulke--it will go better with your tzitzit.

It says Lilburn where her courtship story is linked from Kindred Grace. Not many google results but looks like he taught computer drafting at a tech college in Wichita. Doesn't exactly look like the type of campus that gets drum circles on the quad.

[Grimalkin]

Yes but that does not explain the dad's beanie and chains hanging off his pants!

I say grave robbery. Stealing clothes of decaying corpses.

Her story reads like the horribly written romance novels I used to read as a kid, without the bodice ripping and throbbing member parts.

[NotALoserLikeYou]

That was a seriously disturbing read.

The parents are assholes.

What state do they live in?

[salex]

That was a seriously disturbing read.

The parents are assholes.

What state do they live in?

Oklahoma Near Okmulgee from what I can tell

[ViolaSebastian]

That was a seriously disturbing read.

The parents are assholes.

What state do they live in?

I'd love to know the thoughts that went into the parents going from "Stay away from that creepy loser" to "Yeah, come over and eat dinner with us, we think you might be our teenage daughter's future husband."

[NotALoserLikeYou]

It says Lilburn where her courtship story is linked from Kindred Grace. Not many google results but looks like he taught computer drafting at a tech college in Wichita. Doesn't exactly look like the type of campus that gets drum circles on the quad.

Looks like the dad is Justin Lilburn, age 45. Mom is Apryl, age 44.

And Jessiqua's husband is 42.

Jessiqua is 23.

[Grimalkin]

Looks like the dad is Justin Lilburn, age 45. Mom is Apryl, age 44.

And Jessiqua's husband is 42.

Jessiqua is 23.

How do you do that? Seriously, how?

[Grimalkin]

I have a 16 y.o. This squicks me so much. Can you imagine her Highschool aged friends coming over to hang out? Hey mom I'm sleeping over at Jesi's house.

[NotALoserLikeYou]

How do you do that? Seriously, how?

spokeo.com after looking at Jessiqua's google+ friends. But I think the mom's name is Ahava. I'm not sure if she evolved from Apryl or if that's a sister. The dad probably has a Jewish name now, too.

[NotALoserLikeYou]

I believe this is the moms blog

minister2others.com

notablepraise.com

and there are links to her other blogs. In one she says she praise is like a bowel movement, it just can't be held back. In another she says something about it being like jello cuz she is just jiggly inside. No family pics. Lots of prophecy type stuff.

[NotALoserLikeYou]

Here is Jessica's husband's homemade church (be sure to click on the end times link for fun)

servantsofyeshua.com/resources.html

[ViolaSebastian]

"In one she says she praise is like a bowel movement, it just can't be held back." :ew: :ew:

This doesn't even make any sense. Not to get TMI, but people hold back bowel movements all the time, lest we be dropping trou anywhere and everywhere.

I like the one about how she wants to be like piece of fruit submerged in jello, except she is the piece of fruit and jello is a metaphor for the Holy Spirit.

YOU WILL ALWAYS TASTE THE JELLO WITH THE FRUIT, PEOPLE!

I found her screed on child brides fascinating, given that her daughter was married off at 17:

notablepicturesblog.blogspot.com/2012/06/child-bride.html#more