(OPINION) Actress Danica McKellar has spent decades in the public eye after breaking into the Hollywood scene playing Winnie Cooper in the hit 1988 show “The Wonder Years.”
McKellar has enjoyed a successful career as a performer and book author, taking her acting chops most recently to Great American Family.
The actress, who stars in the new film “A Royal Date for Christmas,” has also been on an authentic and public faith journey over the past year and a half, embracing Christianity and sharing her experience.
“I feel so blessed … people have said, ‘Oh, you are so bold,’” McKellar said of her willingness to discuss her beliefs. “It doesn’t feel like bold. It doesn’t feel like it requires courage or anything. … When you experience something that is so beautiful and so wonderful and so life-changing, you want everyone to feel that.”
McKellar said the roots of faith were set in her heart after fellow actress Candace Cameron Bure invited her to a Passion play on April 10, 2022 — an experience that ended up being life-altering, as the Gospel message permeated her heart.
“It just hit me,” she said. “Everything hit me. The Holy Spirit came to me. … It was like a wave of love and understanding hit me.”
Until then, McKellar said she had always had a “sense of God in some … shape or form,” but she said her ideas about Christianity were very colored by negativity and framings presented in the news.
“I’d always thought of religion and Christianity as being restrictive and limiting somehow, but, instead, I feel the most amazing freedom,” McKellar said of her faith. “And I was like, I have to share this. I have to tell people the good news.”
Before becoming a Christian, she assumed believers were judgemental and had caused problems, with these preconceived notions clouding her vision.
McKellar continued, “I just didn’t get to see … this is the most miraculous, amazing, incredible gift in the whole wide world. I just want people to feel that they’re not alone, that there’s love for you at any time, and it’s such a gift.”
The Passion play brought that gift to McKellar, who said Bure had also given her a Bible at the start of her spiritual journey. She described Bure as “amazing” and inspiring, explaining how Bure spent time answering her faith questions.
