Growing up, home was not a safe space for Marianne Tan.

She experienced years of emotional and physical abuse. Her parents fought violently, and she would often hide by locking herself in the bathroom hoping to escape the ruckus.

Adding to the instability at home was the presence of extramarital affairs and eventually, divorce proceedings.

When Marianne was 10, her father left the family. Shortly after, her mother was declared bankrupt when her business failed.  

Young Marianne (in red) celebrating her father’s birthday with her younger sister and cousins (back row).

Creditors haunted them day and night. The family tried to avoid attention by using newspapers to cover all the windows, but the people coming after them continued to bang on their door incessantly.

During those years, the young Marianne would sit helplessly on the bathroom floor and utter prayers.

“God, would you stop all these? Would you give me a normal family?” she pleaded with Him.

She was a student at St Hilda’s Primary School at the time, and knew about Jesus from its devotion and chapel sessions.

However, her prayers seemed to go unanswered.

Marianne at age 11, at the East Zone table tennis competition.

In despair and feeling hopeless, Marianne developed a habit of standing at the window of their ninth storey flat. At first, she just imagined what it would be like to jump off the ledge. She would toss a piece of paper or object down, follow its trajectory and witness its  impact on the ground.

Later, she began actively planning and researching on how to die. But each time she wanted to put her foot out the window, she was held back by a strange feeling of “not today” and a peculiar sense of empathy.

“I always felt bad for the cleaning lady who would then have to deal with my gruesome, lifeless body,” Marianne told Salt&Light.

Fortunately, her teachers in school chanced upon her journal that detailed all her suicidal plans. Apart from sending Marianne for counselling, they rendered practical help by helping her procure uniforms, books and giving her extra lessons.

But home remained a place of darkness and pain for the young girl. After filing for bankruptcy, her mother became mentally unstable and developed hoarding behaviour.

The house Marianne lived in was cluttered with items her mother hoarded.

Marianne also recalled the time when her mother instructed her to call her father to ask for money to pay the bills. She obeyed, only to listen to her father disowning her over the phone: “Who is Marianne? I don’t know who is Marianne.”   

Feeling unloved and abandoned, she tried seeking belonging by going to church. People at the first church that she went to, however, judged her for wearing sports shorts to church (she wore knee-length shorts to church having come straight from training and not having time to change out).

She tried going to a second church but she felt rejected and condemned there as she did not fit in with their practices.

Anything to escape living at home 

The teenaged Marianne left home and abandoned her faith.

She spent countless sleepless nights with her new homeless friends at McDonald’s and at parks by the beach.  

“During that time, I still experienced the kindness of others. I went to friends’ houses to bathe and their parents would feed me,” said Marianne, now 34. 

During university, she escaped home once again by opting to stay in a residential hall. However, the depressed Marianne still needed refuge from her pain. This time, drinking and partying became her comfort.

Marianne during her university days when she went drinking and clubbing frequently.

She found a boyfriend of a different faith. She was far away from God then, so it did not matter that he was not a Christian.

In university, she chose to major in economics – a practical choice which she hoped would prove lucrative in future.

Marianne (second from right) graduated from the National University of Singapore in 2014.

“I was determined to make something of myself and prove to my father that I was worth loving, and not someone to be left behind,” said Marianne.

Upon graduation, she worked hard and climbed up the ladder at a well-known technology firm. Every six to nine months, she would get a promotion or bonus for hitting her targets.

Marianne on a work trip to San Francisco in 2017.

After working tirelessly for over two years, she had saved up enough to pay off her student loans and to rent a room.

“I could finally move out of my house and I was doing well in my career. Everything seemed to be going in the right direction,” she told Salt&Light.

Praying to God in the bathroom 

In 2018, she was on a 13-hour drive from Perhentian, Malaysia back to Singapore after a holiday with her boyfriend when she was hit with an intense pain on one side of her face.

Marianne took different kinds of painkillers but the jarring pain persisted.

Marianne’s holiday trip to Perhentian, Malaysia in 2018.

Despite being far from the faith then, she automatically turned to her “weird habit” of praying to God for help. Since young, she had developed a habit of talking to God in the bathroom, even though she did not know if she was just talking to thin air.

“God, can You please take away the pain? It’s really very painful. I promise You, if You take the pain away, I will go to church,” said Marianne as she desperately tried bargaining with God.

All she heard in return was: “Go and do your health checkup”. It was a thought that came into her mind out of nowhere.

“What? No, I will go back to church. Just get rid of the pain,” Marianne continued praying.

Once again, the instruction to “Go and do your health checkup” flitted through her thoughts.  

“I found it so weird because I wasn’t thinking of doing any health checkup while dealing with the pain,” said Marianne.

When she returned to Singapore, she found out that she had a wisdom tooth eruption. After dealing with that, she thought there was no harm doing a full body health checkup since it would be paid for by her company.

One week later when her medical report came back, she was called to the clinic. Her bloodwork was mostly fine, but her X-ray showed a big white patch across her chest. It was cancer.

Marianne’s chest X-ray from her health report in 2018.

The doctor kept asking her if she could breathe, as it seemed that the tumour had grown so big that it was pressing on her windpipes. The specialist told her that it was 99 per cent likely to be lymphoma.

“I was shocked because I was young and leading an active life then. I couldn’t believe this was happening,” said Marianne.

“But I was not afraid of dying because since young, I never really wanted to live,” she mused. No tears fell when she heard that she had cancer.

It was only when the specialist asked her: “Do you have any family members I can call?” that she broke down in tears.

She felt utterly alone because there was no family member she could rely on in her time of need. Instead, she gave the doctor her boyfriend’s number.

She was hospitalised the very next day for more scans and a biopsy.

Diagnosed with cancer at the age of 27

That night, Marianne prayed.

“This is it, God. You know that I never really wanted to live. I am ready to go now. This is the time You can take me away,” she told Him.

Yet somehow, she also had a feeling that it was not yet time for her to go.

The biopsy result was Stage 2B of Hodgkin’s lymphoma. It had grown silently in her chest over the years.

Within a week, Marianne was scheduled to undergo both chemotherapy and radiotherapy. In the months ahead, she experienced an outpouring of love that she had never experienced before in her life.

Her colleagues started fundraising for her medical bills, raising S$15,000 in just three days. It was sufficient as her company’s insurance scheme bore most of her medical expenses.

Marianne’s colleagues raised donations for her medical expenses on a crowdfunding platform.

Her friends – primary school friends, university friends ­– came to visit her in hospital. Her friend’s mother brought her chicken soup every week, and the family she was renting a room from cooked for her during her recovery period.

Marianne’s friends visiting her in hospital and playing games with her.

“I have never felt so blessed before, which is a very strange thing to say for someone having a life-threatening diagnosis. I knew I had to try to keep on living since so many people were supporting and encouraging me,” Marianne told Salt&Light.

Chicken soup that was cooked for Marianne weekly by her friend’s mother.

After receiving 10 months of treatment, Marianne was given a clean bill of health in 2019.

“After surviving this, I felt it was God who saved me,” she said. “I had a strong desire to connect with Him and discover who He is.”

She realised it was God who had told her to do the health checkup that led to the discovery of the tumour. Many sufferers of this form of cancer usually only find out about it when the tumour grows so big that it causes difficulty breathing. By then, it may have become Stage 4 and be harder to cure.

She also felt that it was God who had been looking out for her and providing for her – by sending her teachers, friends and colleagues who cared about her – since her youth.   

Finding community online in an overseas church  

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, Marianne went online and found Citizens LA, a church in Los Angeles.

Its sermons on identity and what people place their trust in really resonated with her.

“I realised that I had based my identity and worth on my career, and that I had to choose between following God or the world,” said Marianne.

Her spiritual hunger was awakened and she attended many of its online courses. She also began to have weekly Bible study online with two women from the church, despite the significant time difference between the countries.

Marianne (second from right) finally met the lead pastor of Citizens LA, Pastor Jason Min (middle), in person for the first time in February 2024 after attending the church’s services and courses online for four years. Also pictured here are Marianne’s missionary friends Tam Wai Jia and Cliff Tam (left).

Later that year, Marianne moved to another big technology company and took on a data scientist role.

The new job required public speaking, which triggered multiple anxiety attacks in her.

During that time, she was also wrestling with God over her relationship.

“I kept asking God that since He touched my life, He can also do the same for my boyfriend. How could I leave someone who was there journeying with me for so many years, especially while I was battling cancer?” she said.

Yet the closer Marianne walked with God, she knew that she had to walk away from this relationship.

Giving God a “blank cheque” to her life

In 2022, Marianne felt led by God to give Him a “blank cheque” to her life. She surrendered to Him her relationship and her career.

“It was so difficult but I broke up with my boyfriend. And I knew God was in it because it was such an amicable break up. My then-boyfriend supported my decision,” said Marianne.

She also left her well-paying tech job, sacrificing a S$30,000 bonus.

She began volunteering with several social service organisations.

As she trusted God to guide her steps henceforth, He began to lead her on a journey of healing and reconciliation.

In March 2022, Marianne had a vivid dream. Amongst several other things, she saw the number “2508” in her dream.

She only realised the significance of the numbers when, a month later, an acquaintance of hers gave her a book titled Undaunted by Australian evangelist Christine Caine.

“I flipped through it and saw that one chapter was titled ‘Number 2508 of 1966’. It turned out that she only learnt that she was adopted in 1966, and on her birth cert she was unnamed and just assigned a birth number of 2508,” said Marianne.

As she read about how Christine was abandoned, abused and adopted, Marianne wept. Like Christine, she realised that despite her circumstances and origin story, God knew her name.

“There was no way I could orchestrate this. God was speaking to me about my adoption as His child,” Marianne told Salt&Light.

Marianne celebrated overcoming cancer with a trip to Australia in a bid to regain normalcy and her former fitness.

Shortly after, God gave Marianne a burden to reconnect with her mother. They had not seen one another in years.  

She arranged to meet her mother for dinner.

“Before the meeting, I prayed and heard God asking me ‘Are you ready?’ three times. I thought it was silly because obviously I was – I was already at the location about to meet her,” said Marianne.

During the lunch, her mother mainly talked to her about her own issues with Marianne’s father.

After the lunch meeting, Marianne went home, feeling a sense of heaviness.

“I didn’t know why I was feeling that way because the lunch went relatively smoothly. Then I heard God ask me: ‘Are you ready for healing with Dad?’” said Marianne.

It was then that she realised that God was after a greater reconciliation in her life.

In 2019 while she was still undergoing treatment, she had briefly seen her father on the MRT.

It was the first time in over 20 years that they had a brief moment of eye contact. He did not recognise her as she was bald from the cancer treatment.

Marianne lost her head of hair while undergoing cancer treatment.

“It felt really weird. My father was just an arm’s length away. Was I supposed to feel something for him? I was still scared of him though I had forgiven him,” said Marianne, who did not reach out to acknowledge him when he alighted a few stops later.

She used to hate him so much that she would curse and wish him dead. She had assumed that the next time she saw him would be at his funeral.

In the following months, as Marianne wrestled with feelings of rejection regarding her parents, she remembered how God ministered to her through the book and clung on to His spirit of adoption instead.

In 2023, Marianne decided to start with baby steps. During Chinese New Year, she mailed her father a simple greeting card and made mention of meeting up for coffee if he wished to. She only left him her email address as she felt unsafe disclosing other contact details.

Marianne writing a Chinese New Year card to her father in January 2023.

To her surprise, her father emailed her back barely half a day later. Thus began their correspondence.

Marianne took things slow as her father’s emails would trigger her at times, and she underwent therapy to process those emotions and issues.

After six months, her father wrote to her and asked her if he could help her with any of her needs.

She had plenty of needs, including school fees for the post-graduate diploma in counselling she was taking up then. But she had no expectations that her father would be true to his word, given his past record.

Nonetheless, her therapist advised her to tell her father what some of her needs were. Even if he did not respond, it would be a useful exercise for her to learn how to express her needs.

She did so and as expected, he stopped replying her emails at that point. Marianne left it at that and moved on with her life.

Later that year, however, God began speaking to Marianne about apologising to her father.

“I thought that was crazy as he was the one largely at fault. But God convicted me about how I used to curse him and He reminded me of how we are to bless our enemies,” said Marianne.

She repented and told God she would do so if He gave her the opportunity to do so.

Within three days, after months of silence, an email from her father popped into her mailbox. It turned out that he was doing his end-of-year reflections and he asked her if she would like to meet.

After praying and fasting, and with the go ahead from her therapist, Marianne arranged to meet her father in a public space in December 2023.

Marianne apologised to him.

“I told him honestly that without the help of the Holy Spirit, it would have been impossible for me to be sitting here and talking to him,” she said. It was the first time in 20 years she came face to face with her father.

He listened to her, and slowly passed her a gift. It was a cross necklace with her name engraved on it.

The necklace that Marianne’s father gave her at their first meeting in December 2023.

“I was shocked because I knew he had been dabbling in every other religion since he left our family. Then he told me that a few months ago, he had come to the realisation that Jesus is the Way,” said Marianne, who now worships at Life Church.

She was stunned.

“I was touched by his gift but beyond that, I realised God’s perfect timing in this. If he had not stopped replying my emails and if we had met earlier, he would have been a very different person,” said Marianne, who could see the change in her father.

That night, Marianne woke up in the middle of her sleep and had a vision.

“I saw flashbacks of everything that had happened in my life. But in those flashbacks, I saw Jesus standing there with me at every moment, including the times when I was crying in the bathroom and standing by the window with suicidal thoughts,” said Marianne.

She wept as she realised that He was truly always there with her.

Marianne continued meeting up with her father. Each time, she encouraged him and gave him books to grow his faith.

Finding God’s calling for her life 

While volunteering at various non-profit organisations, Marianne also received clarity about her calling in life.

Marianne volunteering at South Central Community Family Service Centre in 2022.

“I was tutoring a girl at a Family Service Centre when she confided in me that she had wondered why her parents did not abort her. Another suicidal girl at a halfway house shared with me her honest thoughts about how she did not think she would live past 18,” said Marianne.

“It hit me that I had those exact same thoughts running through my head in the past and how I was divinely placed to meet those girls,” she added.

After graduating with her graduate diploma in counselling, Marianne is now pursuing a Masters in the same field so that she would be equipped to help others who also come from dysfunctional families.

Marianne’s postgraduate diploma in counselling psychology.

“When I was younger, others told me that my pain has a purpose. I didn’t understand it. I didn’t want the pain. I didn’t want the purpose,” Marianne admitted.

“But now I know that we can comfort others better only when we ourselves have received comfort from God (2 Corinthians 1:4).

“Having cancer, while it was a very painful time, has been the biggest blessing in my life because it led me to my Heavenly Father and my earthly father.”

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