Candace Bure Explains What Happened to Her During the 10 Years She Left Acting: 'It Was Really Hard'
It’s been said more than once: If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.
Candace Cameron Bure learned as a young bride of 20 that God’s plans for her life were a bit different from what she had in mind.
She met her husband, Valeri Bure, at 18, as her role on “Full House” was coming to an end, according to Variety. They were married two years later.
Having started acting in commercials at age 5, Bure already had a 15-year acting career already under her belt, and she was at what most would deem the prime time of her acting career.
So it was natural to assume she would keep acting, right?
Wrong.
“God was like, ‘Nope, I’m going to take you out [of the industry] for 10 years because I’m going to build your character,” Bure said Tuesday on “The Candace Cameron Bure Podcast.” “I’m going to build your worldview — which has become a biblical worldview. I’m going to change your priorities [so] that, if I allow you, if I have you go back into the business, you’re going to come in with new eyes.”
The remarks were part of a conversation with author Heather MacFadyen, author of “Don’t Mom Alone.”
The topic for their discussion was, “Are there seasons that you can look back on and see how your character was refined?”
In the conversation, which was shared on YouTube as well as on the actress’ Instagram, God’s blueprint for her future continued.
“You’re going to have a different intention in the business,” Bure said God told her. “It’s not just going to be about being on another television show or being an actress. It’s not about winning an award. It’s not about getting the job. You’re going to be a disciple of me.”
Looking back, she said she can see the wisdom in that course of action — becoming a stay-at-home wife and mom to her three kids. But the plan wasn’t always so clear from the other end of the tunnel.
“I look at those steps and I’m like, ‘OK, God! I’m so glad you took me out of it,'” Bure said.
“It was really hard when he did, and I’m grateful that I was able to come back, but I’m a different person than I was in my early 20s, and I really do have a different perspective on why I’m in the industry and what I’m trying to share with people,” she said.
Those 10 years changed her relationship with God, which changed everything else about her life, Bure said.
“When I started my career, I didn’t have a focus on God as my priority,” she told MacFadyen.
“I was not in a relationship with God,” Bure said. “Being a Christian was just a compartment of my life, like a box I could check off and say, like, ‘Oh, I’m a Christian. Oh, I’m a woman. Oh, I’m an artist. Oh, I’m an actress.’
“And during that season of motherhood, which I focused on my relationship with God, I then actually started walking the walk. And I’m like, ‘Oh, I believe this because I’m reading the Bible and because I believe this, not because I was taught this or I was raised this way or because my parents are.’
“I’m like, I now owned this and wanted this intimacy with God, to develop that relationship, which is a friendship.
“Like, you want time with your best friend. That’s how you get to know them. That’s how they become your best friend, and I wanted that with God.”
She said, “I really do have a different perspective on why I’m in the industry and what I’m trying to share with people and what my goals are, which are just so different when I’m just like, ‘I want to win an Emmy.'”
As a result of her faithfulness, God has opened up new doors for Bure to make family-friendly movies, first for the Hallmark Channel and, since last year, for the Great American Family network.
MacFadyen compared taking that time to build a relationship with God to that of an athlete putting in years of training before the Olympics.
Bure agreed, saying, “God wants us to sit in that conversation so that when we’re teaching our children, when we have a conversation with a friend that may be going through having cancer or going through a divorce or whatever, that is, just needs a friend, that you have real true wisdom and truth to share with those people.”
She confessed during the conversation with MacFadyen that she sometimes struggles to change gears from “work mode” to “wife and mother mode” after she gets home.
“So when I get home and I’m talking to my kids or my husband, I notice my mind wandering off and it’s like I get that glazed stare, like, glazed-over eyes, and I’m nodding and I’m smiling but I have not heard a word they said, because I’m thinking about, ‘Oh, I still wanna do this. Oh, I gotta add that to my list.’ …
“A lot of times I will stop and pray in that moment and say, ‘God, I need to focus and I’m struggling right now. And help me to let go of the things that don’t need to be attended to right now so that I can focus on what’s important right now, at this moment.’
“And if I take that, those 10 seconds to pray … I would say 99.9 percent, I am able to focus, because I feel the spirit, I feel the Holy Spirit is with me, [saying] ‘Yes, this is where I want you to be.'”
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