FirstLadyB | Connecting Faith and Hollywood
Sherri Shepherd shares her journey from being a Jehovah Witness to becoming a Christian.
The actress told ABC’s Paula Farish on her “Journeys of Faith” podcast how growing up as a Jehovah Witness ruined her family and pulled her away from the religion.
First she was told by the religion that she couldn’t talk to her father, because he was disfellowshipped for not believing all of their practices.
“I was told as a young girl we had to stop talking to my dad even though he lived in our house,” Shepherd shared. He worked three jobs to take care of us and I remember my two sisters telling him, ‘We can’t talk to you anymore.’ I saw him breaking down and crying.”
Then there was the time they found out she was no longer a virgin. She was put on a 6 month reproof and everyone was banned from talking to her.
“I think that was the last straw because in the Bible it says, ‘the greatest of these things is love,’ and you telling me that the man that I love, who’s giving everything to take care of me, I can’t talk to?” the actress questioned.
When Sherri became a teenager she stopped being a Jehovah’s Witness and got saved at a “black Pentecostal church.”
“When you’re a Jehovah’s Witness you don’t go into churches because ‘churches are of the devil,’” she said she was taught to believe. “But I tell you, I had such a sense of peace when I was in that [Pentecostal] church.”
Shepherd said she “loves being a Christian girl.”
She was in awe of the fact that God still loved her despite her sins. She says her goal in life now is to reflect her faith in Christ in everything she does.
“I pray that every day you see Jesus in me,” the Keto Diva said. “Your life is ministry!”
