Jennifer Garner arrives on the red carpet for the 88th Oscars. Picture: AFP/FREDERIC J. BROWN

The upcoming Christian-influenced film is adapted from Texan mother Christy Beam’s memoir of the same name, about her terminally ill 12-year-old daughter Annabel’s inexplicable recovery.

Garner, a 43-year-old mother of three children ranging in ages from three to 10, says: “I was so touched that everything in the movie were things that really happened to this family.

Martin Henderson and Jennifer Garner in a scene from Columbia Pictures', Miracles from Heaven. Picture: Chuck Zlotnick/Sony Pictures via APSource:AP

“I found it so beautiful. It reminded me that mums are sitting next to bedsides watching their children suffer, watching their children be in pain that can’t be touched by medicine, watching their children go through horrible procedures and having them sometimes not turn out. This felt like an enormous sense of being compelled to take the role on to honour their experiences, as silly as that may sound.”

The film also stars New Zealand actor Martin Henderson, currently starring on Grey’s Anatomy, as Christy’s husband, Kevin Beam, and Kylie Rogers as their ill daughter.

“Although every role I do is informed by the fact I’m a mother — because you’re different once you’re a mum — when you watch Martin, who doesn’t have kids, you never for a second thought that’s he’s not a dad. It’s just human when a child is in pain or peril. You don’t have to be a parent to understand that emotion.”

Jennifer Garner said she felt an enormous sense of being compelled to take the role on to honour the experiences of mothers with sick children. Picture: Chuck Zlotnick/Sony Pictures via APSource:AP

Annabel Beam was afflicted with pseudo-obstruction motility disorder, an incurable disease that prevents the digestion of food with sustenance having to be administered via feeding tubes. After a near-death experience in which she fell 10 metres from a tree, Annabel made a full recovery, reportedly due to being hit hard on the head which apparently reversed her debilitating condition. “I met with Christy and Annabel many times,” says Garner. “I know that she went from not being able to digest the air that would get trapped in her stomach, or water or food of any kind, to her being able to eat a plate of fettuccine alfredo.

Garner gets a little emotional.

“Talking about this movie makes me a little, ooh!” she says, her eyes tearing a little. “But the kid is OK, she’s more than OK. She’s a lively old soul; a silly little girl. She’s amazing.”

As to whether Garner believes Annabel experienced a miracle, she nods her head.

“Yes, I do. I spoke to Dr. Sam Nurko (portrayed in the film by Mexican actor Eugenio Derbez) and I said to him, ‘What do you think happened?’ And he said, ‘I believe her software was rebooted in that fall’. And he said, ‘What do we know? Who am I to say that a child didn’t go see God and God didn’t grant her a life free of pain?’ ”

(L-R) Actors Eugenio Derbez, Jennifer Garner, Kylie Rogers, Queen Latifah, Martin Henderson, director Patricia Riggen attend Sony Pictures Releasing's Miracles From Heaven. Picture: Frazer Harrison/Getty ImagesSource:Getty Images

Religion is a subject with which Garner feels comfortable.

“I grew up in a family that went to church every Sunday, and vacation Bible school. Actually, our whole social life was centred around church, which is true for many families in West Virginia. That’s where our basketball teams were, that’s where my first job was, that’s where I babysat. I was very, very involved in the church. And then when I had my kids and lived in LA, I got lazy about it, frankly,” she says.

“This movie helped me realise that faith isn’t something you will adopt or feel or know just because your parents know it. It’s something that I had to become more active about as a parent and it started this conversation between the kids and me. They said to me, ‘Yeah, we do want to go to church, Mom. We do want to go’. And so I took them that Sunday and we really haven’t missed a week.”

It’s no secret that Garner’s faith has been tested of late with the breakdown of her 10-year marriage to Ben Affleck, which officially ended last June when the couple announced their separation.

He was rumoured to be having an affair with the couple’s nanny, though Garner told Vanity Fair that if that occurred, it was after the couple’s separation.

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner in happier times. Picture: Christopher Polk/Getty Images for VH1Source:Getty Images

No stranger to scandal, Affleck’s alleged wandering eye also contributed to the demise of his engagement to Jennifer Lopez in 2004. Affleck’s bad behaviour is apparently common knowledge in Hollywood. Who can forget Ricky Gervais’s unforgettable Matt Damon introduction at this year’s Golden Globes: “The only person who Ben Affleck hasn’t been unfaithful to.”

But Garner is taking the high road and says she doesn’t want to talk about him other than what she has already said in the Vanity Fair article.

She smiles.

“I feel strong. I think my strength comes from having such a solid background. I come from a great family and having that kind of support — whether it’s my sisters, my parents, my friends, that is a huge part of my strength. And when you have kids you turn into a mamma bear. It just adds a whole other layer.

“I also feel that there’s something about being in your 40s where women stop apologising for being strong and just accept and own the fact that they’re strong.”

When our conversation returns to the subject of miracles, she adds, “I’m in the camp where everything’s a miracle. A perfect glass of wine is as much a miracle as anything else, but that is part of why I think I’m a pretty happy person.

“I really do see everything through that lens.”

MIRACLES FROM HEAVEN OPENS THURSDAY