Weekly Prayer Focus
To Pray for this Week
This week our prayer focus is for Jessica Biel:
Jessica Claire Biel is an American actress and model who was born in Ely, Minnesota. Her mother Kimberly Biel is a homemaker, and spiritual healer. Her father Jonathan Biel, worked for GE, as well as being an entrepreneur and business consultant.She has a younger brother, Justin, born in 1985. Jessica has German, French, English, and Choctaw ancestry. Her family moved frequently during her childhood, living in Texas, Connecticut, and Woodstock, Illinois, before finally settling in Boulder, Colorado.
Jessica initially trained to be a vocalist, and from age nine appeared in several musical productions in her hometown, playing lead roles in productions such as Annie, The Sound of Music, and Beauty and the Beast. She also trained as a gymnast.
At twelve years old, she attended The International Modeling and Talent Association conference in Los Angeles, where she was discovered and signed on by a talent agency. She began doing modeling work in print advertisements, as well as appearing in commercials for products such as Dulux Paint and Pringles.
She also played the character Regrettal, a lead role in a low-budget musical short titled It's a Digital World, but the film was never released. At age fourteen, after auditioning for several television pilots, Jessica was cast as Mary Camden the oldest daughter in the family drama, 7th Heaven.
Jessica landed her first feature film role, playing Peter Fonda's granddaughter in the critically-acclaimed drama Ulee's Gold, released in 1997. Her performance earned her a Young Artist Award. In spring 1998, during a break from filming 7th Heaven, Biel starred in I'll Be Home for Christmas, playing the love interest of Jonathan Taylor Thomas.
In 2000, during the fourth season of 7th Heaven, Jessica commented that she grew tired of playing the wholesome preacher's kid, and blamed the show for giving her a squeaky-clean image, which caused her to lose out on a role in American Beauty (the part went to Thora Birch). In a last ditch attempt to be let out of her contract, she posed semi-nude for the cover of Gear magazine. Fans and producers of 7th Heaven were outraged, and the shoot also sparked a lot of controversy, as Jessica was still under eighteen at the time, and brought legal action against Gear magazine. Aaron Spelling made it clear that she would be staying with the show until her contract was due to expire (although, she appeared in minimal episodes in season five, due to her character attending college out of state). She has stated that she regrets the Gear shoot, but considers it a learning experience.
In 2001, Jessica played the love interest of Freddie Prinze, Jr. in the baseball themed movie, Summer Catch. The next year, she starred as promiscuous college student Lara in the ensemble, The Rules of Attraction, a film adaptation of the Bret Easton Ellis novel of the same name.
After leaving 7th Heaven at the end of the sixth season, she was cast in her first top billing role in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The film was met with mixed reviews, but became a commercial success, scoring the number one spot in its opening week, and going on to earn in excess of $80 million at the box office the United States. Since The Texas Chainsaw Massacre she has a variety of films including Stealth, Elizabethtown, The Illusionist, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, and The A-Team.
The Los Angeles Philharmonic announced that Jessica would perform the role of "Sarah Brown" in a fully-staged concert production of Guys and Dolls during the 2009 season at the Hollywood Bowl. On the last night, she received a rousing standing ovation from 17,000 people.
She also landed a part in Lincoln Center Theater's two-week-long workshop of the musical version of the Pedro Almodóvar classic Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, along with Salma Hayek.
Jessica has participated in a variety of different charity endeavors. She has also dated a variety of different young men, and is currently dating American pop musician and actor Justin Timberlake.
What turned me on to highlighting Jessica as a Target Redemption is an interview recently posted the Exposay Web site. In it Jessica said, "I absolutely had a mad, crazy period. Probably 16 to 22-ish, I was sneaking out of the house, getting in trouble. The thing with the US is you can't drink until you're 21, but everyone drinks before.
"Listen, I broke the rules just like everyone else does. I'm not an angel, I'm not a perfect person who doesn't mess up, eat bad, not work out - I mean, I do all of those things. It's just for the most part, when I'm working, I don't feel like I have the choice."
The article goes on: The 28-year-old beauty - who sticks to a strict diet and exercise regime while filming - loves drinking alcohol with her friends, but admits she is growing increasingly concerned with the damaging effects it has on her.
She explained to Glamour magazine: "I love to go out and dance with my girlfriends and have a couple of glasses of rose and enjoy myself. But I'm just more concerned about how bad I'm going to feel in the morning.
"Once the world starts to tilt, I know I should stop. Goldschlager is my 'I had a terrible night on it and can never drink it again' shot."
Although from her early years it appears she had a spiritual influence of some kind through her mother, there is absolutely no indication that it was a spiritual influence that would or did lead her to salvation, and her lifestyle would confirm that. But now, it appears Jessica is doing a little introspection.
Please pray that God will increase the introspection, send a Christian or two or three into her life to witness to her of the love of Jesus Christ, and also pray that she will be in a position to respond as we beg our Father to draw her to His Son.
--Heidi