“Wonder Years” star Danica McKellar shared with the Great American Community how the Lord’s Prayer has helped her in her faith journey. McKellar, who previously stated she is reading through the whole Bible for the first time in her life, shared that the Lord’s Prayer has often helped her when she has “a lot of things on my mind.” She stated this has allowed her to reflect on the prayer. She notes that the prayer is filled with requests but that “There’s one thing that we say we are going to do throughout the whole prayer, and that is to forgive those who trespass against us.” “I know that God’s love isn’t conditional, and His gifts aren’t conditional, but still, isn’t it interesting that that is the one thing we are called upon to do in the Lord’s Prayer?” she asked.

She stated that forgiveness doesn’t necessarily mean allowing toxic people to remain in one’s life but that it does require a change of heart. “Forgiveness is really important, and this just signifies how important it is,” she said. “Essentially more important than I realize. What does forgiveness mean? It doesn’t mean to let toxic people back into your life. But I do think it means that with everything in your heart, to truly wish that other person well. To wish them love, peace, and harmony, to wish them well.” She ended her video by saying that “if forgiveness were easy, everyone would be doing it.” She challenged herself and others to focus on people in their life that they could do better in forgiving. 

The timing of McKellar’s video is ironic given the recent “Jeopardy!” flub where all three contestants were unable to complete a missing word from the first line of the Lord’s Prayer. McKellar herself is celebrating her first year of being a Christian. Well-known Christian actress Candace Cameron Bure had given McKellar a Bible and invited her to go to church. She released an Instagram video last year to announce she had accepted Christ. “What I’ve been experiencing over the last couple of weeks is the feeling of finding that love and joy and freedom from my relationship that I’ve been developing with the Lord. This feeling of freedom and joy is available to everyone … It’s just a decision,” she reflected. She shared with Bure on her podcast one year later how, before, she’d had a negative view of faith. “[Religion] has been used to do very mean things, evil things, throughout history. Anything powerful can be used to do corrupt things from time to time. And so that was my association with it. And I was missing out on all the amazing, beautiful stuff, like all that good stuff. … I wasn’t open-minded to it before.” She also shared that her new life with Jesus “feels miraculous.” She stated that people have to understand that being Christian does not mean that she is going to be perfect. “Just because you’re a believer doesn’t necessarily mean that you are going to be a good person. … A friend of mine … was telling me, ‘There are Christians, and there are authentic Christians. There are people claiming to be Christians, and there are people who are actually truly living for Christ and truly striving to live for Jesus. None of us are going to be [perfect], but we can strive for it.'”