Everybody Loves Raymond star and devout Catholic Patricia Heaton recently announced that she finished reading the entire Bible for the first time in her life.
In a video posted to Twitter on Sunday, Heaton shared that she completed a 1-year Bible reading plan by The Gospel Coalition.
“Some days were just revelatory. I saw things I’d never seen before,” the actress said. “And some days were kind of a slog … especially the Old Testament.”
A year in the making. I finally did it! 📖 #scripture #bible #prayer #biblestudy #pray #VerseOfTheDay #god pic.twitter.com/4FnSgJ2q48
— Patricia Heaton (@PatriciaHeaton) December 18, 2022
She also held up two partially torn papers with coffee stains, which was a daily checklist of the chapters she finished reading, The Christian Post reports. Behind those pages was her handwritten list of the names of God in the Bible.
“He’s a Provider, Healer, Righteousness, Sovereign, the Most High, Good Shepherd, Prince of Peace, Lion of Judah,” she said.
“It’s a great way to start your day,” she told her followers, encouraging them to make time for reading God’s Word and prayer.
Heaton also admitted that she had missed out on the readings “for a few days” and had to do a “big catch-up.”
“It was best to just, every day, set that time aside to meditate on it and pray,” she said.
Toward the end of the video, she said that she would begin a new Bible reading plan in 2023.
In a 2021 interview with The Christian Post, Heaton explained why she is bold about her faith.
“There’s a saying, ‘Jesus died for us publicly. So don’t live for Him privately,'” she said. “But I also think you have to talk about why you can love in difficult circumstances. Now, it’s because He first loved us. While we were still in our sin, He died for us.”
She is also a longtime ambassador of World Vision, a Christian humanitarian charity that has served over 100 countries and is considered the largest Christian international non-governmental organization.
“We are successfully combating a lot of those things, and World Vision is a big part of all of that,” Heaton said. “I really did my research with World Vision. They are such a transparent organization where 86 cents of every dollar goes directly to [the] program so that when you’re giving money, you know it’s really being used for programs that are lifting people out of poverty, not necessarily some big salaries. People who work for World Vision are living very sacrificial lives.”
Last year, Heaton released her book, Your Second Act, which includes inspiring stories of people who reinvented their lives regardless of where they were prior.
Related:
Bible Reading Plan – Read the Bible in a Year
15 of the Best Bible Reading Plans to Use in 2023
Photo courtesy: ©Getty Images/Phillip Faraone/Stringer
Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer. He is also the co-hosts of the For Your Soul podcast, which seeks to equip the church with biblical truth and sound doctrine. Visit his blog Blessed Are The Forgiven.