Actress Melissa Joan Hart recently opened up about her faith journey, a “Holy Spirit moment” that helped her to understand the Trinity, and how her recent work with a faith-based organization, World Vision, has changed her perspective on the power of prayer.
The Hollywood veteran has been outspoken about her faith in Christ for several years. Although she is best known for starring in 1990s TV shows like Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Clarissa Explains It All, and Melissa & Joey, her quiet devotion to God has become as she describes “deeper and closer and more fulfilling.”
Hart, who was raised Catholic, began attending a Presbyterian church after meeting her husband, Mark Wilkerson, who was a Baptist.
But The Masked Singer performer told the Christian Post that she recently had a “born-again” moment that helped her to understand the Trinity.
“I did have a born-again, Holy Spirit moment,” Hart shared. “I never really understood the Holy Spirit or the Trinity in a sense. One day, we were in Bible study and it just hit, like the Holy Spirit made sense to me all of a sudden!”
“One day, I just felt it and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s the Holy Spirit talking to me. I get it now,'” she recounted. “Like a lightning bolt just hit me and I was like, ‘The Holy Spirit! I don’t know why it just hit me and I got it.’ Then I better understood the Trinity and all that.”
She shared with CBN that prayer plays an important role in her life and her career, even though at one point she wanted to give up on it.
“I think that all through my life faith has always been there for me. As I talk to myself as I go through my day, I’m always going to God. It’s never just me talking to myself. I’m always talking to God about what the best course of action would be in a particular situation,” Hart said.
“I’m constantly asking the Holy Spirit to calm me down and quiet me. Being upset about something isn’t going to get me there any faster. I’m constantly just finding little moments throughout the day to spend with God,” she said.
Hart added, “Of course, I fall to my knees when I come to a real crossroads when I have a major conflict in my life or something that is really on my heart. As a family, we make it a habit to go to church every Sunday. We don’t show any shame in our faith. Prayer is just a very important part of our family. Faith is all very much an important part of our lives.”
The mom of three says she has even learned how to handle anxiety through prayer.
“I actually wanted to stop praying for a while because I was having such terrible thoughts that would frighten me so badly,” she confessed. “I was like, ‘I’m not gonna pray anymore because I can’t handle these thoughts. It’s giving me anxiety. It’s keeping me from sleeping. It’s like, literally choking me with how scared it’s making me. When I pray, these other thoughts are coming in. And that’s when I realized that Satan is trying to take over so I have to keep doing it!”
“I fought through it and that doesn’t happen anymore,” Hart recalled.
Hart has put her faith into action in a variety of ways, even partnering with World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization, over the years.
In June, she worked with the organization to help provide clean water to the people of Zambia.
She says that while she was there she had a conversation about prayer that changed her perspective.
“It’s a Christian country and almost every household we went to they were praying with us. But they couldn’t understand why we pray,” Hart said.
“They couldn’t understand why we pray when we have so much. They’re like, ‘It’s weird to see a family pray that already has everything, like what would you pray for, or how would you pray?'” she continued.
“Sometimes I think, in our country, we hear people more likely say, ‘Why would I pray, everything’s a wreck? Everything’s falling apart around me. God doesn’t care. Why would I pray?'” Hart illustrated. “But what they’re doing, they’re like: ‘Well, we need to pray because we need our goats to be healthy. We need rain to come but not too much. We need our crops to do well. We need our children to be healthy. We need our school to be improved.”
Hart says through the ups and downs of her career she has learned to depend on Jesus.
“One of the great things that I’ve learned is that darkness is just the absence of light and without Jesus, you just have this darkness and then Jesus is the light… so not having Jesus in your life just leaves this void,” she said.
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