From abortion to conception: How this high-flying and heavy-partying ex-banker broke free from secret shame to find life again 

Winnie T was born and raised in a Christian family, and had very loving parents.

She also played the part of being a “great” kid – studying well and bringing in good grades.

“Growing up, I always dreamed that I will get married in my mid 20s, have children shortly after that and have the beautiful Singaporean life,” said Winnie, now 45.

But life turned out very differently.

From young, Winnie did not have much of a relationship with God; it felt more like a religious ritual that merely required her to say grace before mealtimes and to go for Sunday service in the small, Chinese church that their family attended.

Instead, she became interested in partying and dating.

Winnie, in her junior college days, with the sailing trophies that she won.

Eventually, she got into a relationship with a friend, and found out she was pregnant the year she turned 19.

“I was shocked, frightened and ashamed,” said Winnie, who at that period had just received her ‘A’ Level results and scored straight As for most of her subjects.

“I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t dare to tell my parents because of the shame and sorrow of the wrong that I had done,” she added.

Her sterling ‘A’ Level results earned her a place at Cornell University in the United States, an Ivy League university and one of the top institutions in the world. Still, Winnie considered quitting or deferring school to keep her baby.

Silence and secret shame 

Yet the public shame and fear of the future weighed on her. So when the doctor, presuming that she had to continue her studies, asked her to abort her then six-week-old baby as soon as possible, she assented to it.

Her then boyfriend was too scared to accompany her for the operation, so she went alone. No one else knew about the baby or the abortion.

“On that day, a part of me died,” said Winnie.

“I hid from everyone and I hid from God out of shame. I thought I could just move on with my life,” she added.

After the abortion, she continued life as best as she knew how to.  

She turned down a government scholarship as she felt a public career would not suit her. Instead, she flew off to Cornell to study operations research and industrial engineering, funded by her parents.

Winnie as an undergraduate student at Cornell University in 2000.

While studying in the States, she still went to weekend church services and Bible study class occasionally, but gradually stopped after a while.

“I felt judged by the Christians there for drinking and partying. Living the Christian life felt so inhibitive that I decided it’s not for me,” said Winnie.

Stubborness of heart despite surviving near-death experiences

Nonetheless, deep down Winnie knew that God was still there for her. During her working days in New York, she experienced two inexplicable near-death experiences.

Both of them involved her falling asleep while cooking instant noodles on the stove after a long night of partying. In both incidents, she was nearly gassed to death.

The first time, she fell asleep in her room with the door closed. When she woke up and opened the bedroom door, the noodles had boiled over and she was hit by the smell of gas that had filled the whole apartment.

“The only thing that stopped me from breathing in too much gas while I slept was my closed door. The strange thing is I had never once closed my door as I live alone and there wasn’t a need to,” said Winnie.

The same thing happened again a second time, but this time her door was open. Yet somehow in this instance her kitchen window (which she always kept shut) was half open and so gas leaked out while she slept through.

“I knew my open door and kitchen window were somehow a result of supernatural intervention. Yet I just continued hardening my heart towards God and lived my life as usual,” she admitted.

At the time, God was just there for her to present her requests to whenever she had a need.

When she graduated from Cornell, she prayed to land a good job, and she did. In 2002, she started work as an analyst with US investment bank Morgan Stanley in New York.

Outside Morgan Stanley’s office (Winnie’s workplace in New York) in Times Square.

After one and a half years, Winnie was transferred to Hong Kong as she wanted to move back to Asia.

The money she earned was good and it fuelled her partying and travelling lifestyle. When she was not on the trading floor, she was either travelling for work or leisure every few months.

The active young woman would usually be found hiking in the mountains, doing water sports or trying her hand at other exhilarating activities like sky-diving, bungee-jumping or partying at the latest festival in town.

Winnie doing a bungee jump in New Zealand in 2009.

Winnie with a friend at one of the weekend party sets.

“It was all vanity and grasping for the wind. I realised I was seeking one momentary high after another like a headless chicken. These worldly pursuits were enjoyable but not ultimately fulfilling,” said Winnie, who moved back to New York City after two years for a bigger role at work. At the time, Singapore did not yet have a trading desk in bonds and so there was no opportunity for her to return home.

Winnie’s daily life on the fixed income trading floor of Morgan Stanley in New York.

While life on the outside seemed perfect, guilt and shame continued eating her on the inside.

As she began approaching the second half of her 20s, going through every Mother’s Day was particularly difficult.

“Can my baby ever forgive me?” 

“I would hide away and cry. I had many questions: Where is my baby? Am I still saved? Will God ever forgive me? Can my baby ever forgive me?” said Winnie.

She did not know what to do, but her heart still remained stubborn and closed towards God.

In 2008, she moved back to Hong Kong for another work opportunity within the same bank again.

That year, the global financial crisis shook the world, and Winnie faced much stress at work.

Some of her colleagues were talking about how much money they ought to make before they could leave their jobs.

Being in her late 20s then, Winnie also found herself doing some soul-searching. She realised that she was not driven by money, and that her current life felt empty.

While she was in Hong Kong, her brother, then 17, came and stayed with her for a short time.

Winnie’s brother in her Hong Kong apartment.

Every other day, she noticed that he was either going to a local church or some Bible study group.

“He opened my eyes to how there is another way to live,” said Winnie, who continued partying and drinking frequently. She had grown to appreciate alcohol so much, given that drinking was commonplace in her industry, that she secretly dreamt of becoming a sommelier.

Yet a passing question from her young brother then struck a chord with her. She recalled him asking her once: “Winnie, you read so many books, why don’t you also read the Bible?”

After his departure, she started exploring attending some local churches – but always sitting in the very last row of the pews and leaving inconspicuously thereafter.

“I was surprised that some of the sermon messages resonated with me, unlike my time growing up in the church which felt legalistic,” said Winnie.

A rude awakening on her 30th birthday

On her 30^th birthday in 2010, the fun-loving Winnie booked a villa in Phuket, Thailand and invited a group of her close friends to celebrate the occasion with her.

That day, they had a wonderful day at the beach, followed by dinner. The plan thereafter was to head to Patong beach to hit the clubs and party the night away.

While they were walking on the streets to Patong, Winne suddenly felt everything becoming dark around her.  

“I wasn’t tipsy or anything, and I am usually a joyful person and the last one left dancing on the dance floor. But suddenly I was seized with a deep sense of fear and dread. I realised that my life had gone down the wrong way and that if I were to continue along this path, there will only be spiritual depravity and darkness that await from being away from God,” said Winnie.

The vision of gross darkness was so real and vivid to her that she began shouting out loud in fear: “Get me out of here!”

Her friends, clueless as to what was happening, dragged her back to the villa. As she sat by the pool and gathered her thoughts, she realised that God, in His mercy and love, had given her a rude awakening on her 30^th birthday.

The Phuket pool where Winnie sat by that night after having visions of gross darkness.

“This had never happened to me before. I couldn’t explain it away. My spiritual eyes were opened and I knew I needed to get right with God. There was a sense of holy awareness and great fear of the Lord,” she said.

Fortunately, she had already made plans to transfer to another role back to Singapore the following week.

A few months after she returned back to Singapore, she went with her cousin to Cornerstone Community Church in 2011.

At the altar, she rededicated her life to God.

“As I fully repented of all my sins before Him, I felt the assurance that He has forgiven me of all my sins, including the abortion. That was the turning point where I found freedom,” said Winnie.

That day, she walked out of all the shame and sorrow that she had been carrying within her.

“I felt so light-hearted and it was like holy amnesia. No longer do I think of my baby with sadness all the time, now that I am sure that God and my baby have forgiven me,” she added.

A hope-filled Mother’s Day

Whenever Mother’s Day came thereafter, Winnie was filled with the hope of reunion and reconciliation in heaven instead of despair.

She found herself no longer chasing after money, but chasing after God.

Having such a hunger to know God, Winnie was easily seen attending two to three services a week. She also took a sabbatical from her banking career to attend Bible school, which was a rare move in her industry.

In 2013, Winnie took a five-month sabbatical from banking to go to Tung Ling Bible School for School of Leadership.

In the initial months of coming back to church, there were a couple of times when Winnie would still come to church service hungover from drinking the previous night.

“There was once I had a hungover but it completely lifted during a worship session. That was when I was really convicted that I needed to consecrate myself and cut off alcohol from my life,” said Winnie.

She fasted from alcohol for one month. At the end of it, some friends around her happened to open a “beautiful bottle of Italian wine”. She took a sip of it and when it tasted like “the most horrible thing she had ever drunk”, that was when she knew she had been set free.

Wrestling with singleness 

Winnie was then in her early 30s. Though slowly being transformed in the Lord, she was still single.

Every Chinese New Year period, her concerned relatives would ask if she “got boyfriend”.

At church, some aunties even remarked: “Sell your convertible. Buy a Hyundai or take a bus and maybe you can attract some suitors.”

Winnie’s secondhand BMW convertible with leather seats.

After a few years, Winnie began to feel like “the protagonist in 27 Dresses”. All her friends around her seemed to be getting married and were having babies but for her, nothing much was happening in the dating department.

So when she was 34, she planned to take off on a personal retreat trip to Wales in the United Kingdom.

“I was going to have a getaway with God and just be done with all these concerns about dating and singlehood,” said Winnie.

Winnie in Wales having a personal retreat with God.

While she was at a prayer meeting at the Bible College of Wales, a volunteer there gave her a prophetic word that she was like the “woman at the well” in John 4.

It did not go down well with Winnie, who felt misunderstood by it.

“It had the connotation of being in ungodly relationships, but at that time I was already walking with God,” said Winnie.

When she was alone driving in her car on a road trip to a retreat centre, she complained to God about the prophetic word and wrestled with Him about still being single.

Suddenly, she heard the audible voice of God speaking to her in the car.

“Winnie, I have always loved you. I have always loved you even when others didn’t,” He said.

That was when Winnie realised the context of the prophetic word earlier was not about condemnation but about His love.

Right then, as she drove down the windy roads in the stormy weather, Winnie wept and wept.

The car in which Winnie heard the audible voice of God while she was on the road.

“God was healing my heart from the rejection of all my past broken relationships and the anxiety and embarrassment of being single,” said Winnie.

“I was set free. I told God that whether or not I’m single or married for the rest of my life, I am content because You are my husband,” she added.

When Winnie came back to Singapore, she was the happiest single in the room. Her heart was light-hearted and settled, no longer consumed with worries about having to find someone.

“I started rejoicing and giving thanks for whatever was going on in my life because He is my sufficiency. He is my chief desire far above all other earthly desires. When I really surrendered this aspect, things started happening,” she said.

Instead of moping around, Winnie began organising outings to activities she really wanted to do, such as paddleboarding.

One of the friends she happened to invite on the trip was Austin Tomlinson, who also loved water sports and later took an interest in her.

Austin is an American who came to Singapore for work. Before Winnie left for Wales, a church leader felt prompted to introduce him to her.

They started dating and were married in March 2016.

Winnie married Austin Tomlinson in 2016.

He was supportive of the decisions she made; even when she felt God calling her to leave banking at the peak of her career as an executive director at Morgan Stanley, and to go to Bible College of Wales to volunteer for six months.

Winnie was at Bible College of Wales for six months as a volunteer and student. She served in the local church and in cell discipleship.

As she went to the Bible College of Wales and on various other mission trips, her heart for the nations expanded. She grew in intercessory prayer as she saw God moving with much power in the mission field.

Winnie led a mission trip to Northern Thailand in 2014.

Thereafter, Winnie waited for doors – especially in missions ministry which was her passion – to open but there were no vacancies. Her church offered her a role in its charity arm, but she did not take it up due to various considerations.

Instead, she got down busy in trying for a baby.

She was 36 years old then and she knew her biological clock was ticking. Month after month, nothing happened.

A deeper surrender 

“The enemy tried to make me afraid with His lies. That I am too old to have a child. That I am cursed because of the abortion. But this time around, I knew my Maker is my husband who has come to give me abundant life,” said Winnie.

“All I have to do is to abide in Him and I will have much fruit. Whatever that fruit looks like – maybe it’s babies, maybe it’s not – I am going to choose to trust God,” she added.

At that time, Austin and her happened to be at their annual church camp. Winnie felt God was speaking to her about choosing to surrender her Isaac – her desire for a child – and her life completely to Him.

Winnie and Austin surrendering themselves to God afresh at the altar call at their church camp in 2016.

That night, Winnie cried out to God in her hotel bed.

“Lord, even if it means not to have babies, I will gladly serve You. Even if I am to join Cornerstone to clean the toilets, I will gladly serve You for the rest of my life,” she prayed.

The next morning, it was yet another busy church camp conference day. Her husband hurriedly ushered her to a breakfast table. To her surprise, her Senior Pastors, Pastor Yang Tuck Yoong and his wife Pastor Daphne, were also at the same table.  

They were having a nice chat when Pastor Yang suddenly called out to her and said: “Come to Cornerstone Missions”.

Unbeknownst to her, he had been praying to God about choosing the next leader who would lead their missions department.

Delighted at the opportunity, Winnie then joined the staff of Cornerstone Community Church, thinking: “Okay, so motherhood is going to be shelved for the next few years because I am going to be actively travelling, but it’s okay. My life is the Lord’s.”

But the very month she was hired – September 2016 – was the month she conceived her first child, David.

The birth of their first child, David, in June 2017.

Undeterred, Winnie continued travelling for missions to the Philippines and wanted to hop onto another to East Africa when her leader advised her not to go.

“My leaders were very supportive and I became the missions coordinator who did not have to travel frequently for missions. I took on a headquarters role where I was a part of the team that raised and sent others out,” said Winnie.

Six months after her first child was born, Winnie conceived her second child – Noah.

The birth of their second child, Noah, in September 2018.

“The God we serve is a faithful God. I am reminded that when we delight ourselves in the Lord, He shall give us the desires of our hearts (Psalm 37:4). Sometimes we go through that waiting because our desires may not be aligned to His. When our desires get refined and aligned to His, He will surely never fail,” said Winnie.

“Come back to abiding in God and make Him your chief desire. Give thanks and sing to the Lord amidst your barrenness, whichever aspects it is in, and let the Lord of breakthrough come through.”

Read Part 2 of Winnie’s story here.

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