By Shawn Smith
Dennis Quaid’s life follows a common trend — a child is raised in church, and by the time they reach their teen years, they start to rebel and walk away from their faith.
But his is a story of rediscovered faith after years of soul searching and fighting addiction.
Although Quaid always identified as a Christian, “I didn’t really know what that was,” he told Matt and Laurie Crouch on TBN Praise.
Quaid grew up Southern Baptist and was even baptized at 9 years old, but by his teens, he became disillusioned from Christianity, or what he called “churchianity.” The zeitgeist of the time also had a hand in him abandoning his Baptist roots.
“It was also late ’60s, early ’70s, there was a lot of other things that were pulling at this country,” the INNERSPACE star said.
That was when he started to explore Eastern religions like Hinduism and Buddhism and eventually got into drugs.
“It’s all about really filling that hole, that empty hole inside you,” the actor said. “And… after everything was going great for me in the world…[I] finally [got] to that point, after I did GREAT BALLS OF FIRE.”
Despite finding worldly success, he battled addiction, and soon after playing the role of rock rebel Jerry Lee Lewis, he entered rehab.
“You might get sober, but you still have that same hole to fill, and I went back, and I read the Bible again,” Quaid recalled.
“It was the red words of Jesus in the New Testament that really hit me,” he said. “And that was the beginning of my personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I’d never really gotten that before, and that continues to grow.”
Related: Dennis Quaid Shares Scary Family Moment During Texas Floods: ‘Praying’
Quaid recently revealed an unnerving moment when he couldn’t reach his daughter Zoe as she was working as a camp counselor north from Camp Mystic where at least 27 people, including many children, perished in a flood.
“I knew it wasn’t near where the floods were, but I wasn’t able to talk to her till the next day. I didn’t really get a lot of sleep that night,” the Texas native said.
Fortunately, she was okay, while he sent condolences to those who who lost loved one in the flood, especially the Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt and family who lost their 9-year-old cousin Janie.
“My heart goes out to everybody [and] my heart goes out to the Hunt family, who are friends of my wife, Laura [Savoie], and I,” Quaid told Fox News
“I can’t imagine…how devastating that would be. None of us can,” he continued.
Quaid is staying busy with recent movies rodeo western BROKE and SOVEREIGN. In SOVEREIGN, based on a true story, he plays Chief Jim Bouchart who runs into conflict with an extreme anti-government group in West Memphis, Arkansas.
The 71-year-old shows no signs of slowing down. When TODAY’s Craig Melvin commented, “It feels like you are working more now than you ever have,” Quaid replied, “[I] got to stay busy, man; rage against the dying of light.”
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