Today I’m chatting with Bek Stone—a mother of two, physio, and BRCA2 Breast Cancer survivor from Albany, who runs the popular Instagram account @mastectomytomarathon. Bek was diagnosed with breast cancer at 32 years old when her youngest daughter was 19 months old. She initially thought she had mastitis but ended up with a double mastectomy and breast reconstruction in 2025.

A typical physio, who adores running, Bek looked around for a creative outlet to encourage others while she recovered from her surgeries and landed on documenting her recovery (and nipple choices!) on Instagram. This chat was so honest, encouraging, and made me cackle on multiple occasions—I hope you’ll listen in, even if you are not facing a breast reconstruction.

This is a different type of episode for us—it’s our first Ask Me Anything episode. Bec enjoyed her chat with Josie so much that she found a way to bring her back! Maddy and Bec pepper Josie with questions from women who volunteer and work in kids ministry across WA. We run the gamut of topics from rural churches to doubts about enduring in teaching kids after leadership failures. This is a delightfully encouraging episode if you have kids in your life, even if you are not gifted in singing or children’s craft or possess the teacher voice. Josie reminds us that sharing our faith with children is a whole church task, because we are a family.

Today’s interview is with Josie Rivett, a mother of four and the founder of a parachurch ministry, Living Words. She’s written an Australian curriculum for kids ministry to teach through the Bible in a year. We discuss her experience starting a PhD in education and setting up Living Words, which pushed her to trust in God’s provision more deeply after a long struggle with doubt in her teens and twenties.

This episode was borne out of Maddy’s experience working on staff at a church and the sheer amount of people who confessed feeling disconnected and lonely in the post-service crowd. These people knew people at church, but described feeling awkward and uncomfortable, like they were not sure if they belonged or fit in with the crowd. So today, Maddy, Rach, Britt and Bec dig into our own experiences of loneliness, specifically at church, and what helped shift us out of these seasons.

Today’s interview is with Crystal Heydenrych, who is a botanist and mother of two. Crystal described the doubts that plagued her after her mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and died four months later. I really appreciated Crystal’s ability to articulate her fears that God did not see her suffering and she was ultimately alone. She explained how she threw herself into researching the resurrection. She explains how God comforted her through reason, when her emotions were overwhelming.

This banger of a question came from our end of year survey, “How do I retain my faith while being a first responder (i.e., frontline mental health, health, child protection) when the workplace culture demands dissonance from Christian values (i.e., black humour, seeing Christians as perpetrators of abuse etc). I personally and others I know in front line work struggle to reconcile their core values and faith with what they see in the world.”

Khaiah Thomson is a hospital social worker, the author of the Blackwood series, and one of our regular writers at Stories I’d Tell You at Dinner. Khaiah, Rach and Bec deep dive into some of the temptations we face as Christians working in frontline mental health and discuss what helps us to reconcile our faith with what we see in the world.

Mrs. Joy Young is a 96-year-old woman who served as a nurse and missionary to Aboriginal people in the Western Desert, Wyndham, and Kununurra with her husband and three children. At one point, Mrs. Young was the only medical professional for a thousand kilometers in the Warburton Ranges in the Western Desert!

I had to pester Mrs. Young to share with me, as she was convinced she had nothing to say! The result was a delightfully funny and encouraging interview. If you’re stuck in a hard place or don’t know what to do with your life, Mrs. Young encourages us towards prayer and trusting in God in every situation, no matter how big or small.

Rach and Bec chat with Amy Stopher, who is on staff at Providence City Church and one of our regular writers at Stories, as we explore the idea that if God made us with limits, for our good before the fall, and commands us to rest, how do we weigh up work, ministry, and family commitments? How do we rest amongst hustle culture?

We are interviewing all of our regular contributors for you to get to know them better. Today’s guest is M, who was a GP and cross-cultural worker in the Middle East, but currently living in Argentina with her Latino husband. She is also one of our regular writers at Stories.

We explore M’s lifelong interest in connecting with and finding common ground with the stranger, people whom on the face of it seem quite different to her, and how this has played out in her work history and friendships. We also discuss grief in relation to the cancer diagnoses of two of her brothers and learning to trust a God who is good, strong and kind.

Today’s topic was requested in our end of year survey. It’s not an apologetics deep dive, but more, how do I be a Christian at work without being Ned Flanders? Join us as we explore the temptations like fear of our colleagues hating us and getting left out, what it means to see all people as made in the image of God, and balancing being kind and being faithful to what the Bible says. We don’t have the answers but we’re sharing what has helped us nut it out along the way.

We are interviewing all of our regular contributors for you to get to know them better. Today’s guest is Jill, a GP and cross-cultural worker in the Middle East, who shares beautifully about the cross-section of burnout, compassion fatigue, and secondary traumatic stress, but basically: what happens when you feel like you’re being dumped by a wave, angry that you’re the one to fix it all? We also cover how Jill found a richer and deeper faith on the other side of it.

Think of Everything to Binge This Summer as your unhinged WhatsApp group chat with your friends and all their best recommendations: books, TV, and podcast episodes. We’re here save you from the endless scroll cycle where you can’t think of a single thing you would like to watch, or indeed anything you have ever watched. Or the aimless stroll around the library questioning if you are indeed a person who reads? We’re preparing you for reading poolside, living your best beach life, and binge-watching TV with your favourite cousin. We got you!

We are interviewing all of our regular contributors in Season 1 for you to get to know them better. Today’s guest is Rhianon Rae, who shares beautifully about her difficulty with vulnerability throughout her life and what God has taught her about his faithfulness and peace through seasons of doubt and church conflict as a pastors wife.

Loving On Your Brothers and Sisters was born from Britt texting this essay to our group chat and us collectively weeping at how beautiful and honest and encouraging it was. Join Maddy, Rach, Britt and Bec as we debrief and process the practicalities of loving our as brothers and sisters in the church.

We are interviewing all of our regular contributors in Season 1 for you to get to know them better. Today’s guest is Pearl Roycroft, a singer-songwriter and guitarist from Perth.

Pearl’s struggles with feeling weak and trusting God with her needs, including periods of travel across the country in her van and working in remote Aboriginal communities, and coming to trust more deeply in his love and provision for her. We also cover how these periods of struggle and changes of seasons have influenced her new album, Closing Doors.

The Internet Said Everyone Else is Doing It is a light hearted debrief with Maddy, Rach, and Bec (with some cackles) about learning to parent while drowning in a sea of parenting advice online. Even if you are not a mother, just a woman casting her anxieties upon the internet and hoping for a sign, this is worth a listen as it is ultimately about growing in discernment.

Bethany is one of the regular contributors to Stories I’d Tell You at Dinner and she shares about her desire to hold on tightly to friendships after the isolation of interstate and overseas moves. She explains how God’s unchanging nature has been a comfort to her and has changed her approach to friendship as one of gratitude and openness.

Why Do The Sads Feel So Sad? is a deep dive into grief with a Mental Health Social Worker, a woman in ministry, and a Clinical Psych Registrar. Britt, Maddy and Bec explore our experiences of grief including bereavement but also discuss loss through transitions, aging, and the loss of dreams and potential.

Can grief be a gift? How do we learn to live with it when our bodies shut down? How do we grieve in community? How do we grieve as Christians? As always, we have questions. Join us around the dinner table as we flesh this one out. 

Madeleine Richards is a singer-songwriter and a regular contributor to Stories I’d Tell You at Dinner. We explore how she started writing and producing songs, coming to faith in Christ in her twenties, and the balm of community and bringing her mess to the Lord after a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis.

When You Are Not Quiet and Gentle is an exuberant conversation with Rach, Maddy, and Bec about extrovert personalities (the personality type that calls out to a speaker from the back of the room), the downward mental spiral when you compare yourself to Maud Flanders, and what on earth “quiet and gentle” actually means. Is it a personality type or something much more? Join an ED nurse, a women’s ministry worker, and clinical psych reg on a tour through nineties church culture, 1 Peter 3:3-4, and Greek words.