One woman’s journey from tragedy to triumph.
If there’s one “overcomer” story that will inspire you to start 2011 right, it is this one. Emily Lim was a high-flying business development personnel for luxury hotels, priding herself (as many intelligent and capable Singaporean women do) on how good she was at her job, and being first at nearly everything she put her hand to.
But just as her career had hit the supersonic stage, and shortly after her wedding to her beau Ben, Lim discovered she could not speak. Instead of words, air exited her mouth. Her doctor correctly diagnosed her with Spasmodic Dysphonia, a rare voice-disorder related to Parkinson’s Disease. “The voice Grinch,” as Lim calls it, had struck.
To witness how Lim, who was racing at the top of her game, came crashing down—mocked by colleagues for her perceived stammering, detained by customs in Puerto Rico for seeming suspicious—makes for a painful read, but as the reader, you keep turning the page, knowing somehow she is going to find the light at the end of her tunnel.
Lim’s candor is stunning in its complete lack of sentimentality—you do not feel at any point that this girl was brave in herself, but that she was broken to a point where God mightily worked through her. Lim gave up her career, and instead of being “liberated,” she found herself feeling restless. A competition by the National Book Council drove her to write a children’s tale—Prince Bear And Pauper Bear, an autobiographical story about a bear without a mouth who discovers he is as deeply loved as the perfect Prince Bear. Lim went on to write three other books, and has won a multitude of international awards, including the coveted Moonbeam Children’s Book Award 2009, for The Tale Of Rusty Horse.
The true hero in the book isn’t Lim, but her husband Ben, whose steadfast support and unwavering confidence in God and his wife carried his bride through what would have made lesser men flee. Lim’s chronicle of how God saved her and redeemed her, bringing her to the realization that she is “fearfully and wonderfully made” makes Finding My Voice a book you want to give to anyone who is going through his deepest valley.
Published by Write Editions
Price: S$18.60 (without GST)
Available at all major bookstores. Log on to www.mustardseedbook.com for more information about Lim.
