“I will open doors for you; don’t pursue any more paper qualifications,” God told “A” level graduate who based her self-worth on academic results

She had always done well in school. Her Primary School Leaving Examinations (PSLE) score could have gotten her into most of the top schools.

She chose a good girl’s school and continued to excel academically, graduating with an “O” Level score that was just two points away from the perfect score.

Unfortunately, things went downhill for Claire* in the second year in junior college.

“I over-extended myself and took on many leadership roles in school and church. I couldn’t say no to others and was keen to use my giftings,” said Claire, now 37. She has requested for anonymity in light of sensitive ministry involvement.

As a result, her health and studies were affected. Claire found herself severely ill for weeks at a stretch and exhausted to the point of not being able to speak or move. She would feel nauseated whenever she tried to hit the books for revision. A visit to the doctor confirmed that her symptoms were due to fatigue; she was instructed not to leave home so she could rest.

Should I retake my “A” Levels? 

When Claire sat for her “A” Levels exams, she knew her results were not going to be good this time round.

Her immediate thought was to retake the exams so that she would get better results and have better options for higher education.

As Claire prayed and asked God about it, He answered her.

“I will open doors for you. Don’t retake your ‘A’ Levels and let your results be. Trust me to work things out in your life,” God said to her as she journaled down her thoughts.

Claire’s journal entry the day God told her that He would open doors for her.

Claire wrestled with God.

“My flesh just wanted results that made me look good. I knew the possible implications on my career and future if I did not to retake it,” said Claire.

Yet she also knew why God gave her that particular instruction.

Identity and self-worth tied to academic results 

Up to that point in time, her self-esteem and identity were closely tied to her results. Growing up, her mother had high expectations of her and was hard to please. Claire grew up hinging her self-worth based on what she did well.

“I knew God was trying to help me dissociate my sense of worth from my grades and learn to rely on Him instead,” Claire told Salt&Light.

So, she chose to obey Him and did not retake her “A” Levels. As she surrendered it to God, she felt peace instead of the dread of having to face her bad results.

As she had expected, her eventual results – two Bs and two Ds – were only sufficient for her to get into the less popular disciplines in university.

Claire’s ‘A’ Level results

At the time, her passions and interests included dance, design and business and human resources.

As she sought the Lord, she felt Him leading her to pursue dance at LaSalle College of the Arts.

“God really opened the door for me because I managed to secure a place despite not being up to mark in technical ability,” Claire marveled.

Though she spent years as a dancer with the Singapore Hokkien Huay Kuan arts and cultural troupe and had won a medal in rhythmic gymnastics in secondary school, a spinal injury resulted her in having to cease further training.

Claire in costume for one of her performances with the Hokkien Huay Kuan Arts and Cultural Troupe.

Missed the auditions, yet accepted into LaSalle

Claire missed the deadline for auditions at LaSalle, but was offered a chance to join its dance classes to showcase her ability in lieu of an audition.

The dean observed her struggling during class and asked her why she wished to join the school.

“She was won over by my answer. Later on, I found out that she was actually very picky in her selection of students,” said Claire, who felt she could use dance for missions in future, even if she did not end up being a professional dancer.

Claire’s rhythmic gymnastics team with the Cedar Girl’s team at the competition where they won a bronze medal.

Dance school turned out to be very tough for her. Physically, it was very demanding. Emotionally, it was also challenging as she found herself at the bottom of the pecking order in school.

Though she had prided herself on being a good dancer, she was lagging behind others due to a lack of training post-injury. Determined to get back into shape, Claire signed up for extra training during the school holidays.

But in her second year in dance school, her instructor pushed her too much while she was stretching. The pain lingered for a few months. The doctors she consulted could not find anything wrong with her hip, though she could no longer lift her left leg in the same way. She went for physiotherapy and ultrasound treatment, but there was no improvement.

“It seems my dance career is over” 

At that time, students were all called back for extra training during their mid-term break. At the end of that week, Claire found herself lying in bed one night in excruciating pain.

Her left thigh was inflamed and burning as if on fire.

Crying out in pain, Claire asked God: “Why is this happening? I thought I obeyed You when I came to dance school. I thought You wanted me to use dance for Your glory. But now I am just suffering and it seems like my dance career is over.”

Just then, the Holy Spirit impressed upon her these specific words: “I will take you out of dance school. Don’t pursue any more paper qualifications.”

A wave of relief washed over Claire.

“After reflection, I knew God was continuing to do the same work that He started to do after my ‘A’ Levels. He was helping me dissociate my identity with academic qualifications and another crutch that I now prided myself on – dance,” she explained.

Claire’s dance days at LaSalle.

However, she also felt a sense of foreboding at the potential obstacles ahead. What would others think of her if she dropped out of dance school? Would her parents allow it?

“How do I explain this to my parents who are not believers? Even within my Christian community, people don’t usually hear God telling them to do such unconventional things. But I knew that if I did not obey God, I would not have peace,” said Claire.

She surrendered her predicament to God, trusting that He would make a way out for her.

The way out came in the form of an MRI scan. A specialist happened to ask for a scan of her spine to be done and it was discovered that she had a slipped disc.

With the slipped disc, it was obvious that pursuing dance would no longer be a wise course of action.

A slipped disc as a reason for leaving dance school

“The injury made it easier to explain to my parents why I needed to leave. So that gave me a pretext for leaving, though in reality, it was actually the knowledge that God didn’t want me to continue,” said Claire, who was just one year short of securing a diploma.

Dance studio at Lasalle during class.

Out of school, she went into a season of wandering. Not knowing what was next for her, she could only be guided by God just like how the Israelites relied on the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night.

She took a one-year break and then ended up joining a Christian project that outreached to the youth.

When the project ended after a year, it was back to the drawing board for Claire.

“I knew God had asked me not to pursue further studies, but I still had to account to my parents. An A Level certificate would mostly only allow me to do F&B jobs,” said Claire.

Going back to school but expecting not to graduate 

In trying to find her sweet spot, she then turned to her second choice after dance – design.

“I felt God gave me the reassurance to go back to LaSalle for design. Of course, if I finished the course I would end up with a qualification. So I expected that God would somehow find a way to get me out of it,” she said.

Her past track record of taking Art at “O” Levels and her portfolio of work got her into design school at LaSalle.

By the first semester, however, it was clear to her that she could not keep up with the nocturnal lifestyle of designers. Their projects were so time-consuming that she often stayed up till 3am to finish the work, and that took a toll on her health. She also began to recognise that while she was good in design, she was not as talented as the rest of her classmates.

Claire took up design in LaSalle.

Claire dropped out of design school after one semester. She explained to her parents that she felt it was not the right fit for her. Through various incidents then, she felt she ought to pursue psychology instead.

By then, people around her were wondering if she was truly following God or simply being fickle.

“You can’t seem to finish anything you started,” her fellow cell member remarked to her.

“Fortunately, my parents were convinced about my reasons and allowed me to leave. But my father wanted me to apply for psychology in a public university, not private, so I did so. But I did not manage to get in with my ‘A’ Level results,” said Claire.

During that time, Claire went with her church on a six-week mission trip to East Asia. It was life-changing for her and she came away from it feeling convicted that there was a call of God on her life to pursue missions in some form.

“Up to that point, whenever I felt I needed to do something, I couldn’t tell my parents the real reason but at least I had some secondary reasons. Now, I had run out of excuses. How could I tell my non-believing parents that I wanted to go into missions? I told God that he really had to take over this time,” said Claire.

Somehow, the topic suddenly came up while she was having lunch with her parents one day, and she told them about it. They accepted her decision after she reassured them that missionaries also have their own support networks.

Getting a job after a chance encounter in a bookshop

While waiting for her church to organise the next mission trip to East Asia, God opened another door for Claire.

It happened that she was browsing in a Christian bookstore when she saw her former school chaplain. Though he did not know her personally, she went up to greet him. Their conversation led to him asking her if she would be interested to work as a Christian ministry staff at ACS (Junior) under Cairnhill Methodist Church. She went for the interview and got the job.

“That job gave me some experience in working with primary school children. It was there that I was mentored by a spiritual mother figure which led to healing for me. Due to my past wounds with my mother, I used to not want to get married or have children,” said Claire, who worked with Cairnhill Methodist Church for a year.

During that time, she attended a missions debrief meeting where she shared with her church members about how God had been leading her to go into the field.

What she did not expect was to receive backlash from the leader of the mission agency, who questioned whether she was hearing God rightly.

Another church leader also brushed off her sharing, and said they would support her in finding her way back to school instead.

Claire went away from that meeting crying and feeling deeply misunderstood.

“That missions door was slammed shut for me. I realised later that they were not intending to allow me to go with them,” she said.

Though she was devastated and uncertain of what she should do next, God opened another door shortly after for her.

Finding her tribe in YWAM

She was at Starbucks one day and happened to share a table with a YWAM (Youth With A Mission) missionary. He later invited her to join his friend’s YWAM DTS (Discipleship Training School) in Vancouver.

Though she had started dating someone in Singapore then, Claire took a leap of faith and went to Canada.

Claire’s classroom during DTS in Vancouver.

“My time there (at DTS) was incredibly healing. I finally found a community of people who hear God and are not afraid to obey Him even when it looks radical,” Claire told Salt&Light.

When she returned to Singapore in 2013, she needed a job to secure a housing loan as she was engaged to be married by then.

“I got a job at World Vision through a connection I had made from the previous Christian youth project that I was in. He vouched for me. Up to this point, when I chose to obey God and not pursue further academic qualifications, God has been faithful to his word to open the doors for me,” said Claire.

“I saw that wherever He wanted me to go, academic qualifications would not matter; and if it did, He would overcome them for me. This happened many times,” she reflected.

After two years at World Vision, she left to join her husband at a private Christian school that taught a biblical worldview through its curriculum. Later on, she also went back to work for Cairnhill Methodist Church on staff for two years.

Discovering her anointing as a teacher  

In 2015, Claire gave birth to her first child, a daughter, now nine. This was followed by a son, now three. She became a stay-home mother to homeschool them.

It was through the journey of having to be a teacher to her two children that she finally found her “sweet spot”: She was anointed to be a teacher; more specifically, a Chinese teacher.

“I was teaching a small group of preschoolers Mandarin at home, and they liked it so much that demand just grew from there,” Claire told Salt&Light.

She realised that everything that she had done up to that point in time – the life experiences and skills she had gained from the doors that God opened for her ­– had prepared her for this role.

In school, she took higher Chinese and Chinese literature. She had even taken the S (Special) paper for Higher Chinese at “A” Levels. Her time with Hokkien Huay Kuan arts and cultural group gave her 12 years of speech and drama training, skills which enabled her to do fun dramatic readings with the children in her classes.

Claire at one of the performances with Singapore Hokkien Huay Kuan arts and cultural troupe.

Being at dance school previously gave her the ability to enhance her lessons with song and dance choreography.

Her teaching stint with the children’s ministry at ACS (Junior) and with Cairnhill Methodist Church had also given her much exposure to engaging preschoolers with various tools and props, and developing curriculum for them.

“Every little thing I am doing now, such as creating my own worksheets for the children, draws from the experiences I had in the past. God has shown me that a lack of academic qualifications has not only not hindered me in doing my job, but that He has planned my skillsets to match what He has called me to do today. He will deliver what He has promised,” said Claire, who finds immense fulfilment in shaping young minds and hearts and imparting godly values to the next generation.  

“But He is not just interested in our skillsets. Through the doors that He opened, He brought me through the inner work of removing the crutches that my identity rested on and of healing my childhood wounds. In the past, I would never have imagined myself working with children,” she said.

Nurturing the next generation and influencing culture

Her Chinese classes became really popular, partly due to the level of proficiency of her daughter in the language and through word-of-mouth referral.

Claire conducting a Mandarin class in her home.

Today, Claire’s schedule is full: She teaches 15 classes a week – for children aged 3 to 13 years old – at home.

“This is my mission field in Singapore – nurturing the joy of learning Chinese and influencing culture through the young ones,” said Claire.

In sharing her story, she hopes that students in Singapore will not let their results define who they are or weigh on their sense of self-worth.

“God wants us to be fully secure in our identity as one belonging to Him. Whatever stands in the way of that, He will go through great lengths to remove it so that He becomes our sole security.”

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