My Journey of Passion and Purpose

By Shirley Eu


To better explain my journey of passion and purpose, I’d like to share some objects from my life because they’re more fun and at the end of this, you probably won’t remember a thing I wrote, but you’ll say to yourself, “What interesting objects Shirley has shared!”


The very first object is my High School report card.


For Intelligence, I was graded “C.” My best friend Katherine reminded me that super smart people have horribly competitive lives striving to live above the rest and I should just be thankful God’s given me a brain that works. Just think of “C” as “clever,” she said. I never really bought that line but I thank God for friends like Katherine. For industriousness, I got a “B”, which most of you know stands for “busy.” For Responsibility, I got an “A.” The worst grade I got was for my second language, Chinese. I had an “E” which, to my chagrin, wasn’t “Excellent” but “Extremely close to failure.”


Under her remarks, my principal, Mrs Chee had written: “Miss Yu is a caring and responsible leader and a very good chess player. She is artistically inclined and will do well in whatever she undertakes.”


Interesting how words can shape a life.



“Artistically-inclined” really meant I didn’t have an earthly chance of becoming a doctor, lawyer, engineer, banker or scientist. Which was fine with me, except my dad really wanted me to be one of those. Well, it seems the principal spared me a lot of grief by meeting with my father and telling him I’m better off going into some arts-related career. And so off I went to California for four years.


I was enrolled in a Liberal Arts program in San Francisco my first year because I harboured a fantasy that I might still have a chance to become a dentist and redeem myself somehow … to save family face! It’s not-really-a-doctor-doctor but it was close enough! (If any dentists read this, please forgive me!)


When I was 17, I decided I was either going to be a really bad dentist or a good artist. I loved painting. I would spend hours in museums and pretty much read anything I could on Art. Deep down, and maybe not so deep down, I knew that God had a plan for my life and it included this passion for the creative arts. I prayed I wouldn’t end up being an Art History professor. (If any Art History professors read his, please forgive me …)


I ended up going down to Los Angeles to the toughest art school on the West coast. Art Centre College of Design Bootcamp. It wasn’t really called that but it might as well have been, because it was the most militant, disciplined 2.8 years of my life!


Somewhere between Advertising 101 and Packaging Design, I discovered my calling in life: I wanted to be the best Art Director in the world.


When I graduated from school, I was headhunted by Leo Burnett Advertising in Chicago. That really stroked my ego. It isn’t everyday that the ninth biggest ad agency in the US offers me a job with perks! I was all set to go to the windy city, but my parents had no clue what someone with a Fine Arts degree is good for, so my mom sent my dad on a mission to bring me home. I sulked all the way from Los Angeles to Hawaii to Hong Kong to Singapore. God wasn’t really done with me yet, and He knew what His plans were for me, even though I was clueless.


My first week back in Singapore, the branch office of Leo Burnett in Singapore told me they were willing to hire me. All of a sudden, I felt God was going to let me have my cake and eat it too! Be rich, be famous, and a Christian! Little did I know that was going to be harder than I thought. Why?


The first product I was hired to sell? Johnny Walker Black Label whiskey.


In school, we were taught to create an image about the product. Any product. You create an allure or a mystique. You sell credibility. You give it class or uniqueness. You see, there aren’t too many unique products out in the world. Johnny Walker black label whiskey is one whiskey out of thousands out there. I remember going back to my office praying at my desk asking why God would put me through Art Centre Bootcamp to sell something I neither believed in nor liked! Sure, I could come up with something creative to sell the product but did I want to do that? I told Neil Anderson, my Creative Director, I’m sorry I just can’t sell whiskey and may I please have another job brief?


Neil humoured me by handing me another job but he told me he did not have a habit of entertaining returned jobs. I squirreled back into my office with the new job brief only to find that I was going to do an ad to sell … Marlborough cigarettes. Suffice to say, I was the only person in Leo Burnett’s 54-year history to reject two of our biggest regional clients on her first day at work and not get fired.


For the next 17 years, I sold shampoo, 7-up, United Airlines, hotel chains, chocolates, yoghurt drinks, computers, hampers, and hundreds of other products and services. I worked in this industry, sometimes frustrated, oftentimes challenged, but all the while questioning what God really had in mind when He made me?


Everything with a Purpose

Look at everything around you. Everything made has a purpose. Seats for sitting, lights for illuminating, glasses to correct my myopia, even abstract art has a reason for being. We are obsessed with making things purposeful.


The question we are often tempted to ask is, “Would God use me?” But I would like to suggest we ask instead, “Why would God create me and not use me?”


Jeremiah 29:11-14 says, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,’ declares the LORD.”



The great Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw once said, “This is the true joy of life; the being used up for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clot of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”


I was not happy as a successful Art Director in a very fast-paced world. Have you ever asked God what you were made for? I wondered what God saw me as.


A Broken Bell

After my son and I moved to Canada in the year 2000, my brother Stanley sent me an object that looked like a bell, while he was vacationing in Europe. He knows I love beautiful, unusual objects. It’s made of pewter and is handcrafted in France. Mind you, it wasn’t cheap. He wrote in the card, “Thought you would enjoy this because you entertain so much.”
The first thing I thought was, What good is a dinner bell if it doesn’t ring? The clapper must have broken off when it was shipped over.


A Larger Vision

It was about four years ago that I had a rather colourful dialogue with God. It happened when I was driving out of my garage on my way to work. The conversation went like this:


“Dear God, I’m surrounded by opportunities to share you every time I step out of my home,” I said.

“How many of these lives do you want to see changed, Shirley?”

Right away, I shot back “Oh, Lord, two women!” I was thinking of my two Taiwanese neighbours.

I was suddenly overcome by the feeling that God was laughing at me! I mean loudly, in my face! I was quite indignant and not a bit miffed but I took a whole week to think why? After a week, I had a breakthrough. I continued my conversation with God.

“Dear God, last week, I got the idea that you didn’t think much of my answer, but I’ve had a good mull over it and I have changed my mind.”

“How many of these lives do you want to see changed, Shirley?”

“A million.” And I added, “in my lifetime, please Lord.”


And I sensed the knowing smile of a Father’s satisfaction that at least this child had finally understood. A million is not too big a number. Rather, it was my vision of God that was far too small. I could probably reach two women but I knew I could not reach a million. I went from I couldn’t, to “I could, Lord, if you would teach me.” That day launched my faith in a very big God.


Some of you might still be wondering, “What’s the broken dinner bell got to do with how God sees her?”


One night, I threw a turkey dinner party for friends. Seeing this displayed in my kitchen, one of my friends took it, opened the bottle of red wine and poured it through the broken bell. My eyes went big as saucers. It was a wine funnel, to aerate the wine as it was poured out of the bottle! How clever!


When you discover what a thing is made for, everything changes! Isn’t it horribly sad that this object might have sat at the bottom of my linen closet because I thought it was a broken dinner bell? Not only was it not broken, it was a fantastic wine aerator. That was what it was made for! In this way, I feel I am most like this wine funnel.


God gave me a zest for the creative arts because He purposed me to bring out the aromas and flavours of His story when I choose to pour it out in a way others can understand. And I am most joyful when I can do just that.


Which brings me to the last object I would like to share with you.


Discovering God in Chinese Characters

Remember what grade I got for Chinese? Yes, an E. Recently God entrusted me with the task of writing a tract about Discovering God in Chinese characters because He knew I would fail without His help.


God lovingly reminded me how His plans and purposes are certain. He had given me an easy love for design. He planned for me to work 17 years in the advertising world selling everything I didn’t care about, so that now I can use all those skills to share Jesus with the million people I do care about. God reminded me that He is unique. God doesn’t need an image consultant, or a campaign. My chief job was not to design God, but to tell others what I had discovered about Him.


When God gave me the assignment to write this 20-page booklet to explain some of the mystery of God to Koreans, Japanese and Chinese through the language of Chinese characters, I knew God was answering the prayer I said on my first day in the ad agency. No, God did not put me through all this training for nothing. He put me through this training so that, in serving Him, I could become the very thing I wanted to be.


Let us not be afraid of failure but let us be afraid of being successful in things that don’t matter. As CS Lewis says so succinctly, “All that is not eternal, is eternally useless.”



We were never meant to find meaning in life apart from the One who created life itself. If you’re asking God what you’re made for, or if you are feeling like you haven’t arrived … don’t give up. God will answer. He promised to be found by you.


He’s not done with me yet and so my life continues to be an incredible adventure. And like the marvelous, creative, and ever surprising God that He is, I’ve learnt that not only can I be a great wine funnel, I am also quite an excellent bell.


About Shirley:
Shirley Eu was born in Singapore, educated in the USA, lived in Switzerland and now works with the Intercultural Network, which is a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ, Canada. Having crossed several different cultures, she is now in charge of Design and Discipleship, working with immigrants and ethnic leaders in BC’s Lower Mainland to develop relevant tools to reach out to immigrants.

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