A-listers share their experience with prophecies, visions, timely interventions and other mysterious encounters.
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A-listers share their experience with prophecies, visions, timely interventions and other mysterious encounters.
1 of 9 Denzel Washington
Before he was an Oscar-winning actor, Denzel Washington failed out of college and didn’t know what he wanted to do. It was the words of a stranger he encountered in his mother’s beauty parlor that changed everything. She asked Washington for a pen and paper. “I have a prophecy,” she told him. “Boy, you are going to travel the world and speak to millions of people.” A few months later, Washington decided to become an actor, and in the years since he has gone around the world and influenced the lives of millions. “What she told me that day has stayed with me,” he said. “I’ve been protected. I’ve been directed.… I didn’t always stick with [God], but he always stuck with me.”
2 of 9 Chris Pratt
Chris Pratt was a struggling waiter living in Hawaii when he encountered a man named Henry outside a store. Henry said God had instructed him to speak to Pratt. “He should have made me nervous, but he didn’t,” Pratt said. Pratt bailed on his plans and went with Henry to church. “I surprised my friends by declaring that I was going to change my life.” Pratt never saw Henry again, but faith became a cornerstone of his life.
In a 1982 Guideposts story, actor Beau Bridges share the story of his first personal experience with God. He was 12 years old, shooting arrows into the sky with some buddies. Everyone else’s arrows fell straight back to the ground, but Bridges’ went missing. He looked everywhere, but couldn’t find it. Hours later, he felt drawn to a tree miles from where he had been looking. His arrow was stuck to the tree. The incident ignited his interest in God.
4 of 9 Matthew McConaughey
Matthew McConaughey drifted from God as his acting career took off, but reconnected with his faith when he married his wife, Camila. When they were pregnant with their first child, they talked about several options revolving around a Bible verse. “My favorite [verse in] the Bible is Matthew 6:22: ‘If thy eye be single, thy whole body will be full of light,’” McConaughey said. They talked about Levi—Matthew’s name before he began to follow Jesus—as a possible alternative. The choice of a name became clear when their son was born at 6:22. They named him Levi.
5 of 9 Gwen Stefani
Gwen Stefani’s faith was strengthened by a miraculous answer to her son’s prayer. She told Late Night host Seth Meyer that her son, Kingston, has a “direct link” with God. “He prays for everything!” the singer said. Case in point: he asked Stefani if she was going to have another baby. Stefani was content with her two boys and told Kingston there wouldn’t be another baby. One month later, she found out she was pregnant. When she told her son, Kingston wasn’t surprised. “I prayed for that,” he said.
Credit: WireImage
6 of 9 Meryl Streep
It’s hard to imagine that Meryl Streep once believed acting wasn’t for her. Widely considered the best actress of her generation, she has received 21 Academy Award nominations—more than any other actor—and won three times. But her life almost took a very different path. After graduating from Vassar College in 1971, Streep originally planned to pursue a legal career. She registered to take an exam to get into law school. But the morning of the test, she slept through her alarm. She ended up missing it entirely. Of course, she could have rescheduled. But Streep took this as a sign. Clearly, she wasn’t meant to be a lawyer. Instead, she went on to earn her Yale Drama graduate degree. And the rest, as they say, was history.
Credit: Ben Hider/Getty Images
7 of 9 Gloria Estefan
Thirty years ago, three-time Grammy winner Gloria Estefan had a brush with the divine that she’ll never forget. On March 20, 1990, the singer’s tour bus was rear-ended by an eighteen-wheeler. Gloria’s back was broken. Even after emergency surgery, doctors warned that it was possible she’d never dance again, never walk again. Gloria began intensive physical therapy that stretched on for months. Her long but miraculous full recovery showed her the power of prayer. “It wasn’t until I was the recipient of everyone’s collective thoughts that I clearly understood,” she said. “I would visually see the prayers entering my body and going to my spine. I would imagine nerves reconnecting and doing all these things. Literally, I was sucking in that energy that I was feeling. It was keeping me buoyed and up.” Gloria said the experience “gave meaning” to her fame. She channeled her encounter in her next album, Into the Light. Its single, “Coming Out of the Dark,” was a love letter to everyone who’d stood by her.
In 2014, actor and former Saturday Night Live cast member Tracy Morgan was in a serious car accident that left him in a coma for two weeks. During this time, Tracy says, he got a glimpse of heaven. He was greeted there by his father. “I just remember him saying, ‘I’m not ready for you, son,’” Tracy said in an interview with Oprah Winfrey on her show, SuperSoul Sunday. Then Tracy woke up in the hospital. Doctors worried that he’d never walk again, let alone perform. Against the odds, he made a complete recovery. Tracy said that the experience changed his perspective, making him more aware of how, as human beings, we’re meant to look out for one another. “What we see sometimes down here on Earth, there ain’t no room for that up in heaven,” he said.
Credit: Theo Wargo/Getty Images
9 of 9 Blake Shelton
In 2015, country music singer Blake Shelton awoke in the middle of the night, a melody in his mind. “I dreamed the first verse of this song,” said Shelton in a press release. “I woke up and immediately wrote it down.” The mysteriously inspired verse would eventually become the song “Savior’s Shadow.” The dream came during what he calls “a very dark time” in his life. He and fellow country music star Miranda Lambert were in the middle of a divorce. Singing the new song helped him get through it. “At first, I thought it was that I’m so sad and pitiful that even God feels sorry for me,” Shelton told Billboard. “And then I thought, ‘No, it’s just that He’s on this journey with me and He’s walking with me.’”
