From Full House to Fuller House

Whatever happened to predictability? Full House was a staple for many of us growing up. Whether we admit to it, or not, we can finish the words to the introductory song. The Tanner family made us laugh, while teaching us lessons along the way, and who could forget when the Beach Boys would occasionally show up at one of Uncle Jesse’s functions?! That is why we cannot wait for the Fuller House Netflix series that starts in February.

Fuller House is similar to the storyline of the original Full House, which features the lovable D.J. Tanner played by a now all grown up Candace Cameron Bure. Similar to her dad, she has become recently widowed and her friend, Kimmy (Andrea Barber) and sister, Stephanie (Jodie Sweetin) move in to help her raise her three boys. While Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen do not reprise their role as Michelle, Bob Saget (Danny), Dave Coulier (Uncle Joey), John Stamos (Uncle Jesse) and Lori Laughlin (Aunt Becky) all make appearances. While it has been 20 years since Full House has aired, we had the opportunity to sit down with Candace Cameron Bure. In addition to Fuller House, she is also co-host on The View. We talked with her three years ago about playing DJ Tanner and how she became a Christian.

I always go right to my hair and my clothes. You know curly scrunchy, big bangs and shoulder pads. It was fun, and it was the early 90’s… but recently I’ve seen a couple of blogs posted that were really cute and one them was “Every Lesson I Learned, I Learned from DJ Tanner.” And it’s interesting to read girls’ thoughts because when you’re growing up playing the character on television you don’t give much thought to it; it’s a job, and it’s fun, I loved going to work. But you don’t realize the influence and the impact that it has on people. It’s flattering and it’s a neat thing to go down in the history books with what people think of when they think of their childhood.

We love how Candace and her brother Kirk are outspoken about their faith. We were interested to hear how they became Christians and why living it out is so important to Candace.

We didn’t grow up in a Christian household, although my mom was a believer. My dad didn’t have much of any religious background and he didn’t want any religion brought into the home. We did start going to church when I was 12 years old. That was two years into the show [Full House]. My parents had separated and were thinking of divorcing and so a family friend had invited our family to go to church in hopes that maybe some counseling would help my parents work through their marriage, which it did. My mom was very happy that at this point in life we were going to church as a family. I say I became a believer at age 12 because I did say the sinners prayer and ask Jesus into my heart, but I didn’t start living my life for the Lord and making it a personal relationship…until I was in my early twenties. While we did go to church as a family growing up it still wasn’t a theme or something that was taught much at home because my dad – even though he went to church many years growing up – was not a believer. My dad actually became a Christian about seven years ago. It took a lot of time for him to get there. I definitely had a foundation and good principles growing up and my parents raised us in a very moral home…. But I would definitely say it wasn’t based upon biblical principles, even though those were biblical principles, just because my dad was very hesitant to put any religious perspective on it.

With any religion that you are, or you grow up with, or your parents are, you can assume that as your identity, you can put that into a compartment of your life, you can use that as one of your labels as who you are… I’m a wife. I’m a daughter. I’m a woman. I’m an Aunt. I’m a sister. I’m an actress. I’m a student. I’m a Christian. I’m a ______. It doesn’t mean anything unless you’re putting those words, or those labels, into action. You can call yourself whatever you want. You can have a belief, or knowledge of it, but unless you’re actually moving forward in action it’s really just an idea.

So I really took my faith personally and developed this relationship: Who is God to me? What did he do for me? And I had to understand who God is, not because I just went to church, or because my parents taught me this, I wanted to know what the Bible said. Then reading the Bible, things became more clearer because I saw it’s not just about being a good person, it’s about putting all of your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. Having paid the penalty for all of our sin, that I am actually
deserving of a life in Hell because I’m not good
enough on my own. And none of us are. God
gave us the gift of Christ, which is free to every
single one of us. I had to realize that it wasn’t
just about being a good person and my whole
testimony in itself is based upon the fact that it
took for me to see God’s law, by the Ten Commandments, and measure my own goodness
by the standard of what God believes is good,
to the world’s standards of goodness. While I
realized for so many years that I’m a good person by the world’s standard, as I held myself up
to God’s law, I realized I had broken all of his
commandments and that I’m not a good person
by his standard.

That’s when I genuinely realized and saw
my need for Christ, for a Savior, for the payment for my own sin and that made me want
to walk in a life that was pleasing to God. There
are a lot of people that either have something
so traumatic or significant in their life that happens, that you can run to God to fill that void or that trauma because you need the comfort, and then there is a huge group of people, and this is the category that I fall in, where I go, “I really didn’t have anything significant happen to me. I didn’t really see a need to have to run to God because my life was really good.” So I thought, “Hey I must be doing things great myself.” So it was understanding and recognizing that I am a sinful person by nature, and I had a light bulb moment of, “Oh now I see why I need Christ.”

Risen Reflections

1. Do you have a friend in need or hurting? Consider inviting them to church or sharing your faith with them.
2. How are you making your faith your own?
3. Are you measuring yourself to God’s standard of goodness or the world’s standard?

Read our entire interview with Candace Cameron Bure