‘Overlooked’ Sister of Famous Actors Embraced God’s Plan Instead of Her Own

Published: July 26, 2024

‘Overlooked’ Sister of Famous Actors Embraced God’s Plan Instead of Her Own

By Movieguide® Contributor

Bridgette Cameron Ridenour, sister of actors Kirk Cameron and Candace Cameron Bure, sat down on THE 700 CLUB to talk about her childhood and how her family came to know Christ.

“I was the little performer in the family, I think…all of us kids were very happy, but I was just performing all the time in my bedroom with my Donnie and Marie microphone, and I was getting all the neighborhood kids together and doing little, you know, plays and things out in the yard, and just performing was just what I loved to do,” Ridenour said.

Out of all of the Cameron kids, Ridenour loved performing the most. So when the four siblings went to an audition and Bridget was told that she wasn’t picked but two of her siblings were, she was crushed.

She said, “I had a lot of work with my braces, and so my mom was a little confused and didn’t understand why I wasn’t chosen that day, and Iris [the talent manager] just said, ‘She’s going to need some work, but bring her back,’ and so for a mom to have to tell one of the kids, the child who really wanted it, ‘It’s just not your time right now, but we’re going to come back’…”

When her acting career never took off, Ridenour would ask God, “Did you forget about me?” but she eventually turned to Jeremiah 29:11 which says, “For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

She started to cry because she knew God spoke to her through that verse.

“God was telling me something,” she said. “I heard Him say: ‘Bridget, all of those years you’ve thought that I’ve forgotten you, you’ve thought that I’ve overlooked you, and I’ve never put you in those opportunities that you wanted. But I have bigger plans for you, and I just saved you and your family from a major, major car accident. I have plans for you, Bridget. But you’ve got to trust me that it’s in my timing that I will show you where I need you and what I want you to be doing.’”

Now she knows that “God writes such a perfect story for each one of us.”

Ridenour talks about her past and what it’s like to see her siblings have success with the she was passionate about in her book, Overlooked. But the main message of her autobiography is that God has a plan for everyone, and no one is overlooked.

But her family had a rocky road to their relationship with God.

“As Kirk and Candace’s career started to grow, my parent’s marriage started to fall apart, and my mom and dad separated when Kirk and I were seniors in high school, and my mom moved out and it was very difficult,” she explained. “They talked of divorce, but a lot of people think that when they hear the Cameron family that we all grew up in a Christian home and we did not. We did not know the Lord, but God had such a plan and a purpose and His hand over our family that He knew how He was going to be using us, you know in for Him, for His glory down the road, and so He kept our family together.”

Kirk was the first Cameron to follow Christ and then helped his family come to know God.

He “was just kind of planting those little seeds in our family and me, being closest to Kirk, I could see the difference in him and so I knew something was changing so our parents stayed together. They’ve been married 55 years, I believe, now.”

In 2005, Ridenour had a miscarriage and went to the hospital. She called her mom, and her mom insisted that she have an ultrasound before the hospital proceeded with a D and C procedure to clean out her womb.

Ridenour argued with her mom at first, but then agreed and demanded that she get an ultrasound, and the ultrasound technician found another baby.

Movieguide® previously reported:

[My husband] and I just looked at each other, and we just said, ‘What is going on?’ I said, “Mom I’m still pregnant.” And she’s like, “What?” and I said yes, I said look, and so at that point I knew that there was something else going on. God was just giving me that sense that something else was happening. So I went to a doctor…and she did an ultrasound on me, and she instantly said you were carrying twins. And I had no idea that I was carrying twins. But I did miscarry one at home and carried the second one.

“If I hadn’t listened to Mom, and Mom being so persistent with me to not let them take me, Reese would not be here,” Bridgette shared that they named the miscarried child Sofia.