Cindy Bond has long been a staple in the faith-and-family-friendly entertainment space, spending decades telling powerful and important stories.
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Bond’s latest effort is “I Can Only Imagine 2,” a sequel to the popular 2018 movie based on the harrowing personal story of MercyMe frontman Bart Millard.
The idea for the follow-up film came from a “Holy Spirit epiphany,” according to Bond.
“I give God all the glory in heaven and on earth,” she told CBN News. “And, also, I give [singers] Bart Millard and Tim Timmons huge gratitude and thanks.”
Bond recalled hearing the song “Even If” — the tune central to the “I Can Only Imagine 2” storyline — and felt something profound.
“I’m a media missionary and I just got … like a still, small voice of God hitting me when I was listening to the song ‘Even If,’ and I was weeping,” she said. “It just meant so much to me, and right then and there, that little, still small voice … it was clear that, ‘You, Cindy, need to make a movie using this song as the foundation.'”
At the time, Bond didn’t know the story behind the song, a cancer journey Timmons faced that led him to seek solace in old hymns and in the message of God’s grace, regardless of life’s struggles.
This Holy Spirit prompting wasn’t foreign to Bond, who said she had the same experience years ago when God dropped the idea on her for the first “I Can Only Imagine.”
“I literally had a Holy Spirit epiphany to make a series of iconic movies based on iconic Christian songs to replicate that anointed worship experience that we have in church, but instead inside a movie theater,” Bond said. “That was the basis.”
Ultimately, Bond said she hopes the film, which opened in third place at $8 million over the weekend, will “bless people abundantly.”
“The song, ‘Even If,’ … the lyrics in that song were born out of true life experiences that Bart and Tim lived,” she said. “And, you know, to apply into our lives as we’re living on earth today, the hills and the valleys, trials and tribulations we all go through and how to manage through them that God is in the fire, God is in the storm, He never leaves us, He never forsakes us — and that, whatever we’re going through … there’s always hope.”
Watch Bond speak more about these issues and find out more about “I Can Only Imagine 2.”
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