Actor Carlos PenaVega spoke to Faithwire’s Billy Hallowell and described how he came to faith at a time when he’d hit “rock bottom.” The Big Time Rush star was “smoking a lot of weed,” he said. “I was drinking, and I was sleeping around.” PenaVega said he had grown up Catholic and taken first communion but that “I knew of God, but I didn’t have a relationship.” It was a miserable time for the actor until he called a friend, Andrew, to open up. Andrew had always seemed happy to PenaVega, and soon he found out why. “He was like, ‘Oh, man, I got Jesus,’” PenaVega recalled. After attending church with his friend, he heard a message from the Bishop, who at one time had been in a similar situation as PenaVega. The connection made PenaVega hungry for more. “He preaches his whole sermon, literally directly into my soul,” PenaVega said. “And after it finishes, I was just [like], ‘This is what I want. … I’m on this Jesus high now.’”

He was invited to a Bible study where he would meet his wife, Alexa PenaVega. Alexa was an actor as well, having come to fame in her role as Carmen Cortez in Spy Kids. Alexa shared with Fox News how she, too, was seeking a stronger faith when she came to the Bible study. “I had come right out of divorce and felt that I needed to realign my life. I wanted a deeper relationship with my faith. I wanted a relationship with God. I wanted to attend Bible study and just dive into my faith,” Alexa told Fox. She said that their search for faith bonded their relationship. “We were both trying to figure out what faith meant to each of us individually in the season that we met. I was ready to dive in with God. I grew up Christian, but… I didn’t know what it truly meant to walk with God and represent him here on Earth. At the same time, Carlos was discovering who Jesus was in his life. So we both met each other at this foundation-building point in our lives where we were both really hungry to grow in our faith… And it was amazing because our entire relationship was based on Bible studies, church and our faith.”

  The two were engaged in 2013 and married 4 months later. Carlos stated that his faith has really reoriented his focus. “I always tell people that acting, singing all this stuff to me, producing writing, it’s a hobby, right? My job is to spread God’s love to everyone … That’s my job. Everything else is to the hobby. I really do believe that God has a huge calling on mine and Alexa’s life, and we’re just going to continue powering through.” The two starred together in a PureFlix mini-series called Power Couple and have written a book, What if Love is the Point? Living for Jesus in a Self-Consumed World.