Welcome back to Faith Meets Fate, where we explore connection and meaning through the stars. In this episode, we were honored to listen to Bianca’s story—one woven with deep faith, family expectations, cultural identity, and ultimately, the quiet courage it takes to follow doubt toward truth.
For Bianca, faith wasn’t something she questioned early in life. Raised in a remote area of New Zealand, her father served as a branch president (akin to a bishop), deeply embedded in both the Mormon Church and the surrounding community. She grew up not just inside the church—but as a visible symbol of it. Being “Matthew’s daughter” meant carrying a kind of public mantle, one of moral clarity and spiritual responsibility.
Her education followed suit. High school in a Mormon boarding school, then university at BYU–Hawaii—an insular path where nearly everyone shared the same beliefs, practices, and worldview. She worked at the Polynesian Cultural Center as a dancer, part of the collective performance of faith and culture that so many of us know well. Looking back, she describes it all as a bubble—a carefully curated world where questions were rare and rebellion was subtle, quiet, and often internal.
But life has a way of shifting. In her 30s, as a wife, a mother of two, and a full-time worker juggling the weight of roles and expectations, Bianca began to feel the ground beneath her faith start to move. At first, it wasn’t about leaving. It was about taking a break—finding time to breathe, to remember who she was beyond the identities given to her. A pause, not a departure.
Then came the turning point. A crumbling marriage, a deep questioning of her spiritual alignment, and the sense that returning to church would mean returning to a self she no longer recognized.
“To go back would mean I was taking steps backwards… and I’m always about moving forward.”
What emerged in that space was not emptiness—but clarity. Bianca began exploring astrology and tarot, and in them, she found a reflection of herself that she hadn’t seen before. A framework that didn’t demand submission, but invited exploration. A spiritual practice not rooted in obedience, but in curiosity.
The real break wasn’t with the church, but with the idea that she had to fit herself into a mold.
“I know too much now… about myself.”
Her story also brings up the intersection of race, relationship, and faith. Married to a man from Zimbabwe, Bianca shares the painful reckoning of learning about the church’s past restrictions against people of color—restrictions that weren’t lifted until the late 1970s. While she doesn’t speak from a place of bitterness, her voice carries the weight of someone who can no longer stay silent in the face of misalignment.
She recounts how a bishop once told her—amidst the unraveling of her marriage—that he supported her choice, even if it meant separation. That moment, she says, felt like a rare gift: being seen not through the lens of doctrine, but through the eyes of humanity.
“I trust that you know what’s best for you… more than my advice could give you.”
There’s something deeply universal in Bianca’s story. Not because of the details—those are uniquely hers—but because of the inner thread it touches: the moment when doubt becomes a doorway, and we find the strength to walk through it.
We’ll continue to share our stories in the episodes ahead—stories of faith, fate, and everything we’re learning in between. If this resonates with you, please subscribe to our channel and share this with someone who might be on their own journey.
We’re just getting started.
See you next time on Faith Meets Fate.
