Lim Shih Hui and her husband were a happy couple in their 30s, having just had their second daughter in 2015.

She was in her last month of maternity leave in July when her husband, who was between jobs, abruptly told her after dinner that he was meeting his friends and had to head out. He had a strange expression on his face and she knew he was not telling her the truth.

“My husband does not lie, so I probed further. He eventually revealed to me that he had intended to end his life that night,” said Shih Hui.

A photo taken from their wedding album in better days.

Though none in her family were Christians, Shih Hui was enrolled into Bethesda (Katong) kindergarten when she was young. This photo of her praying was taken by her father on her birthday in school.

On hindsight, the tell-tale signs were all there. 

During dinner that night, he was dressed nicely in a polo tee and long pants though they were simply eating at home. He strove to make eye contact with her and had an awkward smile on his face throughout dinner.

When pressed further, he told Shih Hui that he felt useless and he ought to be gone for good.

Shocked but knowing that he needed medical attention, Shih Hui obtained his permission to admit him into the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) for treatment.

She visited him every day during his two weeks stay there, and returned to spend time with her two daughters ­– then aged five years and four months old respectively ­– at night.

But her problems did not end there. Strange things were happening in her house.

Eerie encounters

“My house became like a perfect setting for a horror movie,” Shih Hui recounted to Salt&Light.

The windows which she closed when she went out were open when she returned.

Then various electrical appliances in her house such as the water heater, standing fan, clothes dryer and CD player began malfunctioning one by one for no discernible reason.

The standing fan that switched on on its own. The windows were also open when Shih Hui returned home though she had closed them before leaving the house.

At night, the sliding door of her wardrobe rattled strangely. Whenever she used her phone, calls out would get cut off suddenly.

Terrified, she asked her family members and friends to sleep over with her on some nights. They also sensed that something was amiss. 

The last straw for Shih Hui came when she spotted a palm-sized bruise that appeared overnight on one of her daughter’s legs.

“The bruise was in the shape of a hand, but it was fatter than a human hand,” she said. “It looked like the palm of some animal.”

Then 34, the young mother was drowning in fear, but she did not share her eerie encounters at home with her depressed husband as he was still in hospital.

Well-meaning non-Christian family members referred her to their religious contacts to help her rid her home of unclean spirits. She did what they instructed – rituals, prayers, bringing “protective” items home – but it was all to no avail and she continued to have disturbed sleep.

At that time, Shih Hui did not know that she had loved ones who were Christians, until her sister and a friend started sending her screenshots of Bible verses and devotionals.

“I didn’t have the mood and time to read all that was sent to me but the funny thing was that the wordings always became blurry whenever I tried to read them. It was as if something was blocking my vision,” she said.

A salvation prayer Shih Hui’s sister sent her via text message.

One day, her sister sent her a Christian salvation prayer and asked her to recite it.

“She said that, should I decide to accept Jesus, He could help me. I sent her the roll-eye emoticon because I wondered how come this Jesus was so transactional – why do I have to say a salvation prayer to receive Him into my heart before He could help me?” she said candidly.

So Shih Hui brushed her sister’s suggestion aside.

That same night at almost 4am, as she was trying to fall asleep, she saw a warm light in her room near her door.

“With the light, I felt a kind of indescribable peace that I had never encountered before in my life,” she said. “Then I heard a very gentle and calming voice assuring me not to be afraid, He said He would guide me even though I did not acknowledge Him.”

It was the first time after many days that she finally did not feel scared. That night, she had the best sleep.

The next morning when she woke up, she instinctively knew it was Jesus whom she had encountered – He had been the one she had rejected shortly before she saw the light.

Remembering the salvation prayer her sister had sent her, she looked for it and read it out. 

“Having seen the light and heard that voice, I thought, aiyah, it wouldn’t kill me to just say a prayer. So I recited it,” she admitted.

But when she did, she felt an inexplicable peace come over her.

“Looking back, everything happened so quickly and I was suddenly zapped from being drowned in fear to receiving the kind of peace that I didn’t know only Jesus can give.”

Within two days, she was connected to pastors and believers in Petra Community Church. They came over to her house and said a cleansing prayer.

“Just like that, all the demonic presence in the house was gone and have never come back since,” related Shih Hui. “It was the first time I witnessed that there is power in the name of Jesus.”

Wanting to know more about this God that she had newly received, she read all the Bible verses and devotional messages that she had earlier received. This time, she found that those screenshots were no longer blurred.

She read them many times over the next few days.

The voice in the silence

Her husband was discharged from hospital a few days later.

Excitedly, she related to him all that had happened.

A friend shared more about Jesus with him and he prayed to receive Jesus into his heart. Both Shih Hui and her husband settled down in Petra Church and were baptised in October 2015.

Shih Hui’s baptism in October 2015 with Pastor David Ong and his wife, Whee Ling. They were her lifegroup leaders in the first few years of her spiritual journey.

Though they were in a community that was supportive, her husband continued to struggle with depression and suicidal ideation.

“He hardly shared his feelings and low moments with anyone because he felt shame and pride,” said Shih Hui. “At that time, information and testimonies of mental health were not as widely shared and so we had limited knowledge about depression. It was also difficult for me to reach out for help because he would stop me from doing so.”

Chancing upon a written note that her husband had penned gave her a glimpse into the darkness of his world.

He wrote: “My beloved wife noticed the changes to my sleeping pattern, my feelings of helplessness and hopelessness in my quest for a stable job, and the frequent breakdowns which led to sadness and loss of energy towards life. It was tough at the beginning to come to terms with my illness and I could not accept it, and I questioned the reason for such an illness.” 

Shih Hui took a year of sabbatical leave to spend time with him. Every few months, her husband would feel discouraged and haunted by the past.

Whenever he allowed the negative thoughts to take over, he would leave short notes asking her to take care of herself or apologising that he had to leave. Sometimes he left his wedding ring on the table. At other times, he disappeared for a few hours at a time. 

Their wedding rings.

“I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t even know what to pray for during those frightening moments,” said Shih Hui.  “The only request that I repeatedly asked God was to preserve his life. And God really preserved his life by getting the police to rescue him from remote locations during the times when he tried to end his life.”

In those one-and-a half-years, there were also times when her husband was in better spirits and appeared motivated to move on from his illness. He spent time with Shih Hui and their two daughters. He also drove Uber from time to time while he sought to land a permanent job.

November 26, 2016 was their eighth-year anniversary. They celebrated it by renewing their marriage vows in the presence of their pastor and cell group members.

“When we became believers, we wanted God to be part of our marriage,” said Shih Hui. “It really gave me hope for the future.” 

The very next day, however, her husband took his own life.

All the ‘Whys’

When his funeral wake ended, reality hit Shih Hui hard.

“I felt abandoned by the man whom I had married. The wedding vow, the promises he had made to me while I’d journeyed with him through the difficult times and the hope of him coming out of his darkness … they all vanished,” she recounted.

She took her two young daughters to her sister’s home to be looked after, then shut herself up in her room.

“I started scolding God and asking all the ‘Whys’ – if You could save his life time after time, why couldn’t You do it again? I thought You are a God of restoration and healing. Why didn’t that happen?” 

She lay on the floor and cried till she had no more tears or words left in her. 

Exhausted, she asked God to speak to her instead. And, in the silence, He did. 

“Suddenly my perspective shifted. My thoughts moved to the fact that, time after time when my husband expressed his desire to take his life, it was God’s mercy and grace that had given us that extra time together,” said Shih Hui, now 42. 

Shih Hui enjoying time painting with her youngest daughter at home.

“The quantity and quality of the time we spent as a family during the one-and-a-half years since we became believers outweighed all the times we had spent with one another before that. I cannot imagine how things would have turned out if God had not come to my help at all.”

Instead of railing at God, she was moved to thank Him for coming into their lives.

Grief trigger

As Shih Hui entered the last few weeks of December 2016, a fellow widow shared with her that there would be moments she would feel vulnerable and lonely.

True enough, her first grief trigger was when she saw a couple holding hands on the MRT train. Her eyes welled up with tears. She missed the hand she had held for so many years.

The train that day was jampacked and there was no way to even move 1cm.

“I looked around and there wasn’t any pole or handle that I could hold onto,” said Shih Hui. “If my husband had still been around, I would have held onto him or put my arm around his waist. As the train moved, I began to lose my footing and said a silent prayer, ‘Jesus, all I need is half a cm so that I can move my feet a little to get my stability back.” 

At that precise moment, the man nearest her moved a little and she regained her footing.

“Then I heard a still, small voice assuring me that He is with me and will never leave me. It was the same voice who spoke to me before I accepted Jesus into my heart.

“Through small encounters like these, I began to see how real Jesus is in my life.”

She realised then that time was not the factor that would determine how fast or slow she would get through the grieving process. It was how intimate she was with Jesus that would heal her from all the anger, guilt and hurt brought on by her husband’s sudden death.

Shih Hui’s youngest daughter enjoying craft at home.

There were difficult times when she could have listened to another, sinister, voice.

Once, after several weeks in church when she felt exhausted from having to walk her grouchy toddler up and down as she refused to sleep, she heard a voice say: “Go and jump off the building.”

In spite of her tiredness, she knew that the voice was not one that she should follow.

Rejecting it in the name of Jesus, she walked back to the church sanctuary and, as she opened the door, she saw the verse: “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke … for My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11: 28-30)

Her tears flowed as she felt God personally ministering to her that day.

In the years ahead, God continued to show Shih Hui that He is with her and He would provide all that she needs.

An ever-present Provider

Once, she wanted to cook mee soto for dinner and had all the ingredients she needed except beansprouts. She went to two supermarkets only to find that beansprouts were out of stock.

She decided to just go ahead to cook the dish without vegetables when she felt a divine nudge to swing by the first supermarket again. To her surprise, she saw a packet of beansprouts sitting on a shelf that was not meant for beansprouts.

It was then that God spoke to her: “This pack has been reserved for you.” Her heart melted.

The mee soto that Shih Hui cooked for her daughters.

She knew such incidents were not a coincidence when they happened again and again.

Once, when the young working mother with her hectic schedule needed teriyaki sauce to cook her daughters’ favourite teriyaki salmon dinner, she saw only one of its kind on the supermarket shelf. The same thing happened when she needed onions for the nutritious ABC soup she was cooking for her daughters.

“These are just a few of the many encounters when I witnessed the love of God pouring down on me,” said Shih Hui, who is a financial advisor. “I see how He knows my thoughts even before I mention them. These are the surprises that I see God gifting to me.

“The God that my late husband  and I were searching for before we became Christians, I found through a relationship with Jesus.”

Noting that there is now a list of hotlines (see below) that those with mental health challenges can seek help from, she suggested one more hotline.

“Try the Jesus hotline that is 24/7, anytime and anywhere. There is no phone number to call, just simply say, ‘Jesus, help me’, and pour everything that you have bottled inside of you to Him.

“He loves you and knows best how to guide you.”

Hotlines for help with mental health

If you know of someone who is feeling mentally troubled and would like to chat, talk to your pastor and/or call these centres:

• Samaritans of Singapore (SOS): 1-767 (1-SOS) (24-hour) | [email protected]| m.me/SamaritansofSingapore
• Institute of Mental Health: 6389-2222 (24-hour)
• Singapore Association for Mental Health: 1800-283-7019
• National Care Hotline: 1800-202-6868
• Care Corner Counselling Centre (English and Mandarin): 6353-1180
• TOUCHline (Counselling): 1800-377-2252
• Fei Yue’s Online Counselling Service: ec2.sg
• Tinkle Friend by Singapore Children’s Society: 1800-274-4788 | tinklefriend.sg (online chat)
• Silver Ribbon Singapore: 6385-3714

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