By Zarah van Dyk
That Monday afternoon in my junior year felt like any other. I was majoring in music, and halfway through the second semester, still clinging to the dream I’d carried since childhood. Music had always been the plan—the only plan I’d ever really considered.
My advisor had asked me to come in to discuss plans for senior year. I knew I was struggling. The classes that had once energized me had become obstacles I could barely clear. Still, I showed up, hoping somehow, we’d find a way to make it work.
We didn’t talk long. Things weren’t working, my advisor explained gently. The words weren’t explicit, but I understood: I needed to find another path. Music, the thing I’d loved most, had become a weight pulling me under.
I knew it was true. I knew it was for the best. But sitting there in that office, I felt like the ground had opened up beneath me. I had mapped out my entire life around being a musician. When we took those career aptitude tests in high school, I’d scroll past every result until I found “music teacher” or “singer.” Nothing else registered.
I called my mother as soon as I left the building, my hands shaking as I dialed. I braced myself for disappointment, for the confirmation that I’d failed at the one thing I was supposed to be good at. Instead, she met me with understanding. No judgment. No frustration. Just comfort. Somewhere in that conversation, religion came up. It had crossed my mind before—just fleeting thoughts I’d never taken seriously. But that day, something about it stuck.
Those weeks of waiting felt suspended in time. Then the day came. I officially made the switch to study religion. The change terrified me, but I was desperate to climb out of the hole I’d fallen into. Fall semester arrived, and something shifted. For the first time in years, I felt awake in class. Engaged. Hungry to learn. The opportunities that opened up, the connections made, were things I never imagined while sitting in that advisor’s office, feeling like my life was ending.
This has been the most profound lesson in surrender I’ve ever experienced. I thought I was in control, that my carefully constructed plans were what mattered. But God was gently redirecting me all along, even when it felt like everything was falling apart. The struggle, the confusion, the fear—all of it was part of God’s mysterious work in my life. Change is terrifying—whether it comes through a move, a divorce, the death of someone we love, or the quiet death of a dream. But God doesn’t just work around our pain. God works through it. God meets us in the office where we’re trying not to cry, and in the phone call where we confess our failures.
When we finally let go of what we thought our lives should look like, God reveals what God has been preparing for us all along. Even when we can’t see where we’re going, even when the lights go out and we’re stumbling in the dark, we are not alone. God is there, faithful and present, guiding us toward a life more fulfilling than anything we could have imagined for ourselves.
Zarah van Dyk is a religion student at Wartburg College. In her free time, she enjoys watching Jeopardy and coloring. After she graduates, she plans to attend seminary for a Master of Divinity degree.
This article appeared in the Summer 2026 issue of Gather. To read more like it, subscribe to Gather.