Oprah Winfrey says she was transformed by Sunday school's words: 'You are God's child'

Oprah Winfrey(Photo: Wikimedia/Greg Hernandez)

Media mogul Oprah Winfrey discussed the impact of God in her life during a speech at Stanford University's Memorial Church last week.

Winfrey addressed more than 1,000 community members, and led them in meditation. 

"Open your heart and quietly to yourself say the only prayer that's ever needed: Thank you, thank you, thank you," she said, "instructing the audience to close their eyes and feel the energy running through them. 

"You're still here," she continued. "You get another chance this day to do better and be better, another chance to become more of who you were created and what you're created to fulfill. Thank you. Amen."

The billionaire delivered the lecture at an event honouring the late Stanford Law professor Harry Rathbun, and was also selected as the university's 2015 Rathbun Visiting Fellow.

Winfrey's speech focused on spirituality, and she encouraged the audience to keep a journal of things they are grateful for. The 61-year-old said that her faith is the centre of her life. 

I know now that having that belief system, that something greater than me was in charge of my destiny, of my fate - that it wasn't just me alone having to survive for myself, is the thing that, is the value, is the rock that has sustained me," she revealed. 

Winfrey recounted attending Sunday School while growing up in Mississippi, and listening to the pastor preach about God being loving and jealous. She also remembered the pastor saying, "You are God's child," and that nothing was impossible through him. 

"... I literally took him at his word," Winfrey said.

The lecture was the culmination of the businesswoman's Stanford fellowship. Past Rathbun Visiting Rathbun Fellows include retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, and former Secretary of State George P. Shultz.