Celtics’ Jrue Holiday Stands Firm on Faith: ‘He is a Miracle Worker’
By Movieguide® Contributor
Boston Celtics point guard Jrue Holiday is sharing how he held on to his faith in Christ during hard times.
“In June 2016, Jrue’s wife, former U.S. soccer star Lauren Holiday (nee Cheney), received a major health scare while six months pregnant with their first child. She was diagnosed with a benign tumor on the right side of her brain. Thankfully, the tumor was operable and not expected to threaten the health of Lauren or the baby,” Sports Spectrum reported.
Unfortunately, Lauren needed surgery to remove the tumor due to the painful headaches she was experiencing.
But in order to do that, Lauren had to have her baby. The doctors induced her 5.5 weeks early so that she could have the brain surgery.
Jrue admitted that he felt helpless during that time, but he held onto one thing: the “positive belief that everything was going to be OK.”
“[Lauren is] the most important thing to me,” Holiday said to Sports Spectrum. “Obviously we were having a daughter as well and this was going to be my first experience with that and I just wanted her to come out healthy.”
The Holidays relied on their faith together. Lauren committed herself to scripture memorization reciting Psalm 30:5 which reads, “For His anger lasts only a moment, but His favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.”
Holiday committed himself to prayer, and the couple grew closer to Christ.
“I think for her and me that was definitely a pivotal moment because that was something — it brought us closer together getting closer to God,” Jrue stated. “I would say [our relationship with God] changed because I started to reach more towards Him. And I don’t know if it sounds cliche or whatever, but I felt like a lot of times when something bad happens, that’s where you can start to seek God more. Again, some people veer away from Him but at that point I felt like because my wife and myself are both believers, we [prayed] together and that’s something that we could just do together. We just pray together every night before we go to sleep. Pray for our daughter, pray for her health.”
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From then on, Holiday would rest on Philippians 4:6-7, which says, “Don’t worry about anything, instead pray about everything. Ask God for what you need and thank Him for everything that you have. If you do this, you will experience God’s peace.”
“Just believing,” Holiday added. “Believing that God can heal any disease.”
The basketball player added, “God is a miracle worker. And just to be able to have faith in that and to have peace with that with whatever decision he makes. Because ultimately, it’s up to Him, and it’s not up to us.”
Movieguide® previously reported on Holiday:
NBA Champion and All-Star Jrue Holiday recently scored a career high 40 points for the Milwaukee Bucks in their 125-131 victory against the Boston Celtics on Feb. 14.
“The only stat I look at is turnovers,” he said after the game. “That’s kind of how I determine if I had a good or bad game. Tonight, what did I have, five turnovers? To me, that hurts my soul.”
“I think for me, it doesn’t matter if I score,” Holiday added. “I would like to make plays on defense most of the time I’m on the court. We have enough guys that are going to score … I try to do my best to impact the defense.”
Holiday’s humility comes from his Christian faith, which he shares via social media and in post-game interviews.
Holiday and the Bucks won the NBA championship in 2021.
“This is such a blessing, man. This is only God,” he said at the time. “Like I said before, as a kid, you only dream of this moment, so to be able to actually do it, to see the confetti, to do it with my brothers, there’s nothing like it.”
