An Australian Scientist Writes to Steward Her Voice and Recall Her Faith
Outside the cottage where Jessica sits and writes in her wooden-floored study, there’s a light drizzle as local wildlife creatures scamper for shelter. Jessica is a scientist and a Christian writer in Australia who describes her surroundings like this:
“We have at least 3 blue-tongue lizards who have taken up residence in nooks and crannies around the house and garden. Snub-nosed, about a foot long, and scarily snake-like when you first glimpse them, I believe they’ve become almost tame–they no longer dart away when I potter around outside. They eat pesky snails and (I hope) scare the actual snakes away.”
I first got to know Jessica through reading some of her writing. We are friends because we’re members of an international writers’ group, where, online, we swap resources and feedback as we write about things pertaining to God and our life in Christ.
Jessica was once a self-declared atheist. A deep thinker who reads widely, Jessica maintains the library at her church, and she is a mom, a wife, a meteorologist, and a storyteller.
Jessica writes from a place uniquely different from my own. I don’t just mean her Australian landscape. She combines intellect and life experience and reconciles her unanswered questions with faith.
Stories, said C.S. Lewis, help us “to see with other eyes, to imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts, as well as with our own.” *
Jessica describes things tangible and concrete to her: the Australian landscape and ecosystem, human feelings and emotions, and the agony of losing her brother to suicide. She writes to steady herself amid suffering and struggle.
In the past, she wrote frequently after emerging from atheism. As a newer Christian, she said “doubts kept resurfacing and my mind wasn’t big enough to always have responses at hand. I almost needed a manifesto to remind me why I believed and what I believed. So, I started writing down responses to those creeping doubts and questions. Some words were my own, most referenced others.”
She writes from a place of honesty, as a creative who craves connection while maintaining her convictions. Her words are evergreen, not catchy, not trendy. Over time, she reflects and revises a piece. She says she writes to force clarity on her thoughts.
Jessica wrote a short prayer—the essence of what she repeats when questions without answers surface, and when grief feels heavy:
“The world is broken.
We cannot fix it.
You can and did.
Turn my eyes to you,
help me see you.
Hold me–hold us–up, away from despair.
Take away the ache in my chest,
and help me do the next thing.
And the next.
Give me hope of joy.”
I’ve witnessed Jessica’s faithfulness. She writes to steward her voice as an Australian and as a scientist who values faith. She wants to believe deeply that Jesus is worth everything, so she continues to seek and cling to him—the “author and finisher of our faith.” (see Hebrews 12:2, NKJV).
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C.S. Lewis quote is from An Experiment in Criticism, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1961.
