Did You Know This Bold Believer Didn’t Grow Up in a Faith-Filled Home?
Movieguide® Contributor
Candace Cameron Bure is known for boldly proclaiming her faith, but she and her brother Kirk Cameron didn’t grow up in a Christian home.
“The first time I ever went to church, I was 12 years old,” Bure shared in a recent podcast.
Bure’s father was always staunchly against religion until he and Bure’s mother went through a rough patch. After hearing some advice from a friend, they began to get counseling from a church and eventually started to attend with their children.
“It’s not like we were instant believers, but I saw that my parents were just working through their marriage, and I would sit every week, and I would listen to the sermons, and I never…totally understood what they were talking about because I didn’t know Bible stories,” the FULL HOUSE star said. “I didn’t know God other than God’s like some big being in the sky that created the world, but other than that, I just didn’t know anything about him and didn’t really think about him beyond that, but then when we started going to church, I did start thinking about those things.”
Then one Sunday, the pastor asked if anyone wanted to accept Jesus in their heart, and Bure was willing and ready.
“I was like, yeah, I want Jesus to be Lord of my life,” she said. “I want him to love me. I want to love him, and again, I didn’t know all of what that meant… so I accepted Christ at 12,” the Teddy Bear Award®-winning actress said.
It would take years for everyone in her family to make the same decision she did. For her brother Kirk, it was just a few, but her father didn’t accept Christ until 20 years later.
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Bure’s relationship with God didn’t advance very much, and she thought of her faith as something that was just there when she needed it.
“My teenage years were busy, and going to church wasn’t a priority,” Bure wrote on her website. “I remember thinking that since He lived inside my heart, I could talk to God anytime, so I really didn’t need to go to church. Instead of a relationship with Jesus, my faith became more like a help line.”
Her faith took a turning point when she had her oldest child, Natasha.
“I was a new mom. I was 22 years old and I started thinking about, ‘Well, what am I going to teach her about God?’ and I realized at that moment that I didn’t really know anything about God, even though I knew he was my savior. I believed I was going to heaven when I died, but I never read the Bible.”
Her relationship with God transformed after she read a book by Kirk’s suggestion. It helped her realize she was a sinner who needed God.
“That’s when the good news made sense to me,” she said. “That God is this loving, merciful, incredible God and sacrificed himself on the cross and died on behalf of each and every one of us so that we can be reconciled to him and so I say that quickly, ‘cause, you know, I know the gospel message so well now, but…I mean it came into such clarity in my life when I was about 22 years old.”
Since then, her faith has become the guiding light in her life.
“It is absolutely the core and foundation of who I am as a person,” Bure said. “My faith means everything to me, and I don’t leave my faith behind when I walk out of my home, I don’t leave it at the doorstep depending on where I am. I know whose I am. I’m a child of God, and that is really the most important thing in my life.”
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