by His grace and His grace alone

19th feb 2023: today marks the day of my public declaration of faith & commitment to Him who is omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent - Him who makes my cup overflow irrespective of circumstances. 

this is a copy of my baptism testimony which i read out to an audience of approximately eighty+ people today - sharing it again in hopes that it encourages someone else here who has not heard it: 

    "i accepted Christ in 2011, but by 2016 the novelty of a transformative, conversion prayer had worn off. old friends who knew sophomore year me in 2016 would describe me with the following adjectives: “bold” and “unfettered”. i was extremely purpose-driven - but my purpose was entirely of the world. my main goals were to (1) explore all plausible, desirable partner options within my tiny college population to get out of single-hood and (2) to bolster my resume with extracurricular activities for what I termed as a “big-fish” internship in junior year. on the outside, i looked like i had my act completely together. friends were applauding me for being “mulan”-esque and a complete “go-getter” for boldly going after both of these things. 

but on the inside, i was like scattered sand. i had pushed God to the peripheries because thinking of Him was inconvenient for what i had wanted to achieve in life. inside, i was suffused with a choking bout of numbness i couldn’t quite shake off. as i wrapped my arms around myself and rocked myself to sleep on bad nights, i thought about how nice it would be to have someone physical to hold me. i didn’t want to think of God - my omni-potent and loving Father-in-Heaven, whom i knew (in my head, yes - but not my heart) had the ability to satisfy even the thirstiest of hearts. how could i, when touch was my love language, but i could not touch and be touched by someone who lives in the heavens, the stars, the seas - whose omni-presence was more than i could bear, whose boundlessness i couldn’t kiss nor tangibly feel? and so i lost myself to the shadows of chasing after things i knew wouldn’t satisfy, after sinful pursuits in the name of personal growth, after fallible people like myself, and got disappointed again and again by prospective love interests who couldn’t commit, who didn’t seek after my heart as fervently as i had romantised in my head. i only prayed for the want of things, not for the want of Christ Himself. 

    matthew 6:33: “but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” 

    and one day, i broke. by the end of the year, i had gotten so emotionally spent from chasing after all these worldly things which didn’t satisfy that i literally felt i had a gaping hole in my heart. as the new year fireworks erupted at the close of 2016, i told God that life without Him always seemed better until it became emotionally tiring and utterly empty, and pledged that i wanted to do things together with Him and not in retrospect anymore. in that moment, i pivoted my heart: i was going to seek Him as the End Desire Himself, and no longer as a means to things which i desired. 

    there is so much joy in knowing that one is finally walking right with God. being anchored in Christ means that i no longer have to resort to sinful pursuits to fill me and make me feel whole, because i am already whole and made complete by Him and His work on the cross. putting my trust in Christ means that my cup will always overflow irrespective of circumstances - because He is the abundant fountain of Love who truly satisfies. there is so much freedom in knowing that in our hearts we plan our course, but it is God who establishes our steps. there is so much comfort in knowing that whatever door He opens no one can shut, and whatever door He shuts, no one can open. my purpose in life now is to glorify Him in whichever secular spaces He has placed me in: to be set apart so that people around me might wonder what my secret-sauce is, and come to their own realisation that it is God behind the works. 

    and just to complete the loop: two months after i told God i would pursue Him and Him alone, God placed the love of my life in my path. we are currently married and expecting a new addition to our beautiful family this year." 

it still feels surreal that i finally (after years of sitting on this decision) bit the bullet and did it, but my heart is so, so full - i am so blessed to have had m, both families and even friends from our community group show up and bear witness to this special personal declaration of faith. today also marks the next step of being officially incorporated into the body of christ which m & i both resonate with. i am so thankful that we made that decision to take the first step towards anchoring ourselves in a new church community we can confidently call our own about a year ago. it has been so fulfilling thus far to be able to do life in a way we know honours Him and sets a good foundation for our marriage. 

2022 - a season of sowing

2022 was the year of honing in on writing the truest, most beautiful story of my life that i can imagine. if i had to characterise it as a cliché: it was truly the season of sowing the seed in anticipation of reaping bountifully in a future harvest. 

the six month countdown to what will be the largest personal growth journey of my life begins today. i don't think i have fully processed what it will mean and how that event will alter our family dynamics forever. all i can say is that i put my trust in You - holding fast to Your promise that no one, thing or circumstance will be able to shut this door that You have chosen to open for us, as long as it is part of Your glorious will. 

in writing this narrative of my life over the past year i had to wrestle with both loss and coming to terms with my latent inner demons which i never knew were buried so deep within me. losing something which was almost life itself was both numbing and sobering - and perhaps a part of me has not fully healed from that episode, which continues to manifest itself in occasional thoughts of "what ifs" to shake my confidence in god (waiting and being able to do absolutely nothing is the hardest bc it requires faith in its purest essence). i also finally figured out why i had made an idol of my own life goal and set arbitrary timelines for myself - timelines which i used as key markers of success or failure to either affirm or beat myself up as i saw fit. i figured out why i tended to overcompensate - i needed to be my own trailblazer to define what success looked like for me because teenage me had been broken by the world leaving her behind. but there is a silver lining in every brooding cloud - in those dim moments i saw and experienced the love of family and the beauty of marriage.

marriage. 2022 was our first year of being married, which m had to remind me is an achievement in itself. we were just reflecting on how 2022 felt like it flew by and a large part can be attributed to how much fun we had in the past year doing life together. i am convinced that marrying the right person for oneself is one of the most important life decisions one will ever have to make, just bc one will spend so much time of one's life with that person once one crosses that bridge from dating into a god-ordained bond that even the state recognises. being able to find joy in the boring, mundane things in life together is the gift of marriage life. i remember saying in 2021 while we were at the beginning of house and wedding preparation that i wished we could skip over to the "sleepover forever" part. the "sleepover forever" part remains one of my favourite parts of marriage life - ending the night tucked in bed and feeling snuggly under our toasty sheets, chatting about everything under the sun until one of us falls asleep. i used to be a nocturnal owl, but at the beginning of our marriage i told myself that going to bed together over the next 365 days and beyond will be one of the small ways we continue to invest in us, and it has now become my favourite way to end the night. 

2022 was the year where i exercised the muscle of staying put and sinking my roots - to the outside world it may have looked like a career lull but i feel grateful to have stuck to my own path that was the most ideal route to hone in on the narrative i wanted to write for myself. i made the most of being where i was. in my first year of being in the job i had struggled with understanding what good looked like. i am now in the midst of being what good looks like, and this is really what i want to get out of this role before i leave. my favourite triumph of the past year was becoming (almost like?) friends with the cmo of one of the hardest customers in our patch (who had really intimidated me at the beginning of the year when i took over this particular account) and watching my consistent hard work and sincerity pay off with our growing relationship, culminating in a full renewal with incrementals despite the account being flagged up as one of the few accounts with the highest attrition risk. the arduous journey we took continues to give me hope in the value of the work that i do. in 2022 i also took on one of the most prestigious enterprise accounts in our patch that used to be managed only by directors - i feel a sense of pride when i think about the unprecedented breakthrough i had with this account by establishing and leading a recurring cadence across all the business units' stakeholders. i now have a seat at the table and that was a result of hard work, boldness and god's favour. 2022 was also the year where i was both exposed to and dipped my toes into "chief-of-staff" in tech kind of work. it takes years to build a personal brand and credibility within the organisation - it was only by staying put that this opportunity opened up. i am grateful that i got to see and do things that people my age do not usually get exposed to. it was definitely more work but also a lot more visibility, learning and brand-building that i got to do. 

and so, i would say that 2022 wasn't a bad year at all. 2022 reminds me of this image i saw that really resonated with me. a picture is worth a thousand words, so i'll leave it here as an apt wrap-up to this season of sowing:

dear me,

from february 2022: "i tell myself different people have different finishing lines, and yet i derive happiness from feeling as if i'm ahead of the curve and conversely get incredibly discouraged when i feel i've been left behind. i tell myself that i am lazer-focused on forging my own path ahead but i still get envious when i hear about peers moving on to greener pastures. i tell myself that the world is abundant and there is more than enough for everyone, but i still fear the prospect of competition and i do feel wistfully piqued when someone whom i view as a "mentee" outperforms me, as if these are not tell-tale signs of a latent insecurity that's festering within me. it is almost as if i'm playing a game of hypocrite with myself and hiding how i truly feel with self pep talk and confident smiles on the outside." 

dear me, 

contrary to the conclusion you arrived at in the beginning of this year, you are not a hypocrite - neither are you playing a game of hypocrite with yourself. you are merely human and still in the midst of untangling the complex web of buried insecurities from the past - the collective narratives you fed yourself when you were not doing too well. 

you have always thought that you had adequately put the past behind you as part of growing up: those adolescent memories of nearly failing at math and the sciences, of feeling like you were the only one who could sense the immanent potential you had within you and feeling disillusioned with the world bc somehow that belief never translated into real-world accolades or opportunities which (on the contrary) seemed to come easily to other people around you. those narratives you had internalised when you knew you were a small fish in a big pond, but no one had ever warned you that you could feel so small and so crippled by failing to achieve the singular definition of success laid out by the cold, meritocratic education system in this country - an education system which continues to penalise those who fall behind. those afternoons when you tried so hard and yearned to be one of those girls "up there", but all you could do was stop yourself from recoiling from the familiar, sinking feeling of handing in papers with blank answers at the ring of the bell, or feeling utterly empty as you swirled frozen yoghurt while your accomplished peers seemed they were getting a head-start at their pre-university internships. 

this un-wrestled brokenness and your subconscious desire to never put yourself in such a position again were and continue to be at the root of what shapes your present-day inclinations - now that you are in better control to define your own narrative of what success looks like. in order to never feel like you're being left behind by the world ever again, you over-compensate and sprint towards the forefront of the curve: doing a solitary internship in new york during the summer of freshman year while your peers were organising orientation camps, overworking yourself to the bone with 4am nights in sophomore year to fundraise for two conferences, sending out linkedin cold-mails from holly's cafe in seoul during your semester abroad in junior year while your friends were properly enjoying their semester break partying and making friends, doing two of the craziest 28mc semesters (unprecedented in student body history) in senior year to graduate on schedule - and as if the workload was not insane enough, putting immense pressure on yourself to find a "dream" job in tech before graduation, all bc you wanted to reap the benefits of your tech giant loa internship without fulfilling the opportunity cost of delaying graduation by 6 months. college were your best years but they were also filled with immense toil and striving. and your brokenness had inadvertently compelled more striving as you transitioned into the next stage of life - starting your nascent career and concretising the dream of settling down and starting a new family. the dream of having your cake and eating it - being both a career woman and a young mother. setting arbitrary timelines for yourself and feeling upset with both yourself and the world when those timelines drawn in the sandcastles of your head did not actualise. feeling perturbed when you felt like the year was coming to a close but you had nothing concrete or noteworthy to show for. subconsciously pushing those self-expectations on your spouse bc you need him as the other puzzle piece to fulfil your lifelong dream. 

step one is recognising that you don't have to hit all these arbitrary milestones that you've set for yourself, bc no one is chasing you anymore. there will be no math teacher pulling you aside expressing concern for your grades and future. you are officially outside of the formal education system which had once made you feel so small with its singular definition of success. everyone is running towards their own finishing lines now and no one cares about where you are in yours - so look ahead bc the only question you need to ask yourself is this: is this path the path that i truly want to be on?

dear denise, this is a reminder to stop inflicting so much pressure on yourself. you can now afford to smell the flowers and pause to appreciate the season you are in - be it a good one, or even one in flux. the beauty of life now is that you have someone you love doing life together with you, in a house that feels like home 365 days a year. and most importantly, you have Him - the giant slayer who is for you and who fights for you, whose open door is one that no one, thing or circumstance will be able shut. 

and so, in this new season - i put my hope and trust in You, knowing that You bring all things that You will into glorious fruition. 

"i took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. i am, i am, i am."

there is still so much to be thankful for. 

it is truly the little things that differentiate good days from bad ones, and today was a good day. whatever transpired at the beginning of this week felt like a massive step back from manifesting my vision and compass for what constitutes the truest and most beautiful version of my life. but today i felt alittle more like my old self again - the "me" who brims with joy from the sheer promise of life but who is typically stashed away whenever i go into auto-pilot mode and amble along in the lucid slumber of the mundane day-to-day. today i showed up for myself by going forward to introduce myself to that specific person who had showed up in my dreams before - that someone who personifies the qualities of the strong career woman whom i aspire to be one day. it sounds inconsequential, but i've been wanting to do this for the past 2.5 years and i finally found both the courage and opportunity to do so today. the best part of showing up for myself is that it's a gift that keeps giving: it creates joy in my heart which makes me more inclined to pause and connect with the people around me, and those connections in turn make me even more joyful. i become a cup that overflows. 

this is by far my favourite definition of contentment that i really resonate with: "contentment means to be happy with what you have, who you are, and where you are. it is respecting the reality of the present. It is appreciating what you do have and where you are in life. contentment does not mean the absence of desire; it just means you are satisfied with your present, and you trust that the turns your life takes will be for the best." tonight, i am reminded of a particular evening in the summer of 2016, where i was on the new york metro and it suddenly struck me that i was the living embodiment of a persona i had admired years ago. today i realised that i am already building and manifesting the ideal life for myself, at least in the career facet. 

this is what i wrote in april about my personal definition of what constitutes a true and beautiful life: "...work is challenging but it is also incredibly meaningful. i am still in the industry of my dreams. i am needed, seen, heard and respected by everyone around me. work makes me feel alive and in my zone, bringing me back to that feeling of "flying" that i used to feel during my yirpa college days. the work that i do is so uniquely "me": it fits the value proposition i have to give to the world like the glove i have always been meant to wear. i have finally found my niche - one that sits at the perfect intersection of business needs and what i naturally gravitate towards." there is still a steep learning curve ahead but there is also so much promise of gratification from the potential value-add i can bring to the table. god has placed me in this unique position in the business that is only privy to me and i have the opportunity to use my skillsets to make a positive impact. my favourite words of wisdom from m is "the grass is greener where you water it." staying put was difficult and comparison made it all the more tougher. but i am also now reaping the benefits of deepening my roots. i love this article that m shared with me. it eloquently articulates (far better than i could ever have) the value of staying put even as the world uproots and cajoles you towards the allure of a greener grass patch outside from where you are. 

contentment comes from the realisation that youth is my capital. in a world where age correlates with credibility, deepening my roots and staying laser-focused on my own defined path mean i can be both young and credible. i just need to continue showing up for myself in the little ways like i've always done and wait for time to compound the impact of working both hard and smart.

the best door

the prelude was harder than the actual event of knowing, but i will only give myself tonight to feel sadness in whatever forms it comes. revelations 3:7 has been strangely comforting: "what He opens no one can shut, and what He shuts no one can open." it is as proverbs 16:9 so aptly articulates: ""in their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps."

my life story can be summarised as a series of god shutting doors in all shapes and forms right in my face, only to open the best ones for me. interning in new york. going to spain on santander's scholarship. interning at aws with the best mentors. getting into salesforce as a graduate. meeting marcus. finding our current house. securing our wedding venue and solemniser. my career thus far. today is no different. i will await the glorious day where god opens the destined door for me, and for us: that door will be one that no one, thing or circumstance will be able to shut. 

soundtracks for seasons

it is the soundtrack that truly makes a drama. it is the soundtrack that encapsulates the longing, the melancholy, the joy, the anger, the catharsis, the butterflies, the nostalgia, the camaraderie of a passé world where characters lived out their glorious story arc, then rolls everything up into a ball and delivers its punch to whoever who would press play. even after the raving reviews fade and the world forgets, the soundtrack remembers and evokes the listener to remember as well. 

in the same vein, the soundtrack is the surrounding context. two saturdays ago, i walked away from the inaugural college alumni reunion with ambivalent emotions in my heart. there was warmth from meeting up with old friends, but also a lingering emptiness from conversations that i would have had, if only we had turned back the clock by six years. i felt connected - yet displaced, uplifted - yet dispirited, nostalgic yet hardened. it made me realise the gravity of context in shaping a sense of belonging and a sense of what's important in life.   

my soundtrack for that season ended in 2019. what had felt so real then came rushing back - but i had to stop myself to remember that my feelings in the present were a mirage. revisiting 2015-2019 in 2022 without its context was like visiting a house without a home. my life is happening in 2022 now, with a completely different soundtrack. what is important to me now is completely different from what was important then. the old me would have stayed for the mixer and let myself go for the night, but that's no longer who i am and what's important to me. i strode out of the campus gates alone with this sole thought in my head: "what's important to me now is going home to my husband who's waiting for me, so we can turn in together." these days, it's the prospect of our next phase of life that excites me. working towards manifesting my vision for what i envisage to be the truest, most beautiful story about my life is what makes me feel so special to get to be "me" - a "me" living in this vast world that can be harsh but will still find space to be gracious enough to me, bc it is my Giant Slayer who goes before me.  

yes i'm changing, yes i'm gone, yes i'm older, yes i'm moving on i've moved on

the language of remembrance and imagination

the routine of work often makes me forget who i am, down at my core. and then it comes back - all at once, on solitary nights when i'm armed with a chilled glass of red wine and my 2016 spotify top songs playlist reverberate in my ears. i close my eyes and give myself into the ebb and flow of the build up and subsequent post-climax catharsis - i let the massive wave of nostalgia crash over me and remember the fragments of an unfettered me from my earlier youth. this is how i remember how it feels like to be alive and brimming at my core. 

"when women write to me in the language of indoctrination - when they use words like good and should and right and wrong - i try to speak back to them in the language of imagination. we are all bilingual. we speak the language of indoctrination, but our native tongue is the language of imagination. when we use the language of indoctrination - with its should and shouldn't, right and wrong, good and bad - we are activating our minds. that's not what we're going for here. because our minds are polluted by our training. in order to get beyond our training, we need to activate our imaginations. our minds are excuse makers; our imaginations are storytellers. so instead of asking ourselves what's right or wrong, we must ask ourselves: what is true and beautiful?

...what is the truest, most beautiful story about your life you can imagine?" - untamed, glennon doyle

i've been dreaming (quite literally) about a specific person for awhile now. she appears in my dreams every once in awhile, sauntering in with her iconic red lip, jet black hair and poised, goddess-like stature. she is a female business leader i don't know personally in real life, but is actually someone whom i secretly look up to - just bc she embodies the strong career woman archetype i'd always admired and aspired towards during my college days. there are many variations of this dream, but in all of them she comes over to talk to me as if we're friends. we sit down for coffee or wine while she holds my hand and i ask her questions i can't remember when i'm awake. all i can remember is that surreal, perplexing yet warm sense of pride from intimately knowing and being valued by someone so accomplished and put on a pedestal by the rest of the world. i'm not sure what these all mean, or why i even dream of her at all. but if i could hazard a guess - i think its my subconscious telling me that despite the motivational slump that comes in seasons and the inevitable monotony of a routine 9-6 day job, there is still a part of me who aspires to become a strong, career woman like her one day. i think it's my subconscious telling me to become someone who will continue to give back and inspire younger, aspiring career women to shatter glass ceilings and steer mnc ships into newer highlands (when i make it big in the future). it also reminds me of the tangible trade-offs of pursuing a career at full-speed, perhaps at the cost of having children. which then begs the million dollar question - can i have both, to have my cake and eat it? 

what is the truest, most beautiful story about my life that i can imagine? 

i can imagine a life where i am both a career woman and a young mother of two beautiful, kind and intelligent children. three is nice but two is good too. it is finally the weekend. we're at the mall and i'm clasping the tiny palm of our little baby girl, while m is carrying our precious baby boy on his shoulders. even trips to the supermarket have become family adventures now. we're making pesto for dinner tonight and so we're on the hunt for some basil leaves, linguine and kiddy juice boxes. the cashier exclaims in benign surprise that we look too young to be parents. we smile and say "thank you, we get that alot". i take in the scene of what has now become my world - our baby girl sleepily snuggling her nose into m's chest while our boy's peskily tugging at m's trousers, the corners of his mouth turning downwards into an adorable pout from the lack of attention received. life now is an amalgamation of quiet moments and sheer havoc. we ricochet between the two extreme ends. sometimes the incredulity of it all makes us want to cry and laugh at the same time, but in an ironic sense it is also the havoc that completes us and we wouldn't have it any other way. 

i think to myself in quiet affirmation: "hard work is what makes rest days truly so restful". work is challenging but it is also incredibly meaningful. i am still in the industry of my dreams. i am needed, seen, heard and respected by everyone around me. work makes me feel alive and in my zone, bringing me back to that feeling of "flying" that i used to feel during my yirpa college days. the work that i do is so uniquely "me": it fits the value proposition i have to give to the world like the glove i have always been meant to wear. i have finally found my niche - one that sits at the perfect intersection of business needs and what i naturally gravitate towards. my enthusiasm and sense of purpose are infectious. i am so efficacious at producing the right outcomes which move the needle towards the larger, existential purpose of the company that no one can ignore me even if they ever wanted to. nothing fazes me anymore - not even customer calls with angry c-level executives, bc i know that i can easily win them over. i am exactly where i need and aspire to be in this stage of my life. i've earned my seat at the table and i'm lifting others up to sit alongside the table with me. i truly believe that the world is abundant and enough for everyone. 

i remember that god is the giver of all good things and i am only able to do the good work that i do bc it is Him who empowers me with the gifts and talents i possess. i no longer feel the temptation of pushing god to the peripheries. instead, i wake up everyday with inexplicable peace and joy brimming in my heart bc i am immovably grounded in Him. the people around me wonder what my secret sauce is (they speculate: "there is something so distinctive about denise that sets her apart from the rest in this cut-throat, corporate world but i can't put a finger to it"), and finally arrive at their own conclusion that it is bc of my faith. (and this is why i do the work that i do - to glorify Him in all that i do, that people may turn towards Him on their own accord). despite the busyness of work and life, m and i have made a conscious commitment as a family unit to give back to our church community. we have a new spiritual community that we're plugged into and it feels like we've known them for a lifetime. we give back in every little way we can - including opening our home to bless our newfound spiritual family. our cup overflows beyond all that we can ever ask for or imagine. 

this is the life i see when i close my eyes and use the language of imagination. in this world i have my cake and eat it, only bc god is embedded in the language of both imagination and truth.