Today I’m chatting with Miriam da Silva—a mother of four, grandmother to one, former journalist who is now a Primary School teacher. Miriam was born in Sri Lanka and grew up very religious in the Catholic church. She described having faith in God, attending daily mass and reading her Bible, but not understanding the good news of the gospel or having a relationship with Jesus Christ. She migrated to Australia in her forties with her husband and four children after civil unrest in Sri Lanka. Not long after migrating, she lost her job as the family breadwinner, had a shoulder injury at work, and experienced financial difficulties, but in the process she met Jesus.

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.