TL;DR When God takes away your dreams, you can trust that He has a better plan in store.
I’ve always been a dream-chaser. In early high school, I decided that I wanted to become a doctor, saving lives and living out some grand, beautiful purpose. I chased this dream in its various forms all throughout high school and university, throwing myself into academics, extracurriculars, and anything else that I thought might get me a shot. For 8 years, it was my eat-sleep-and-breathe obsession.
Then 2025 happened. In May, a week before university graduation, I received a rejection letter from my dream graduate school. They had decided not to let me in.
That summer, I felt like my soul had been crushed. I tried to make the best of my grad school rejection and pick myself, but it felt like everywhere I turned, another door slammed in my face. I applied to a number of summer jobs and interviewed for one, only to be rejected. As I frantically tried to ‘stay on track’ with my career plans, I began to feel like there was no clear track to stay on. I ended up working part-time shift work at a grocery store for minimum wage. It felt like 8 years of stress, striving, and hard work, and dreams were disappearing right before my eyes.
In my season of disappointment, God started to speak to me through prayer, preaching, and even prophetic dreams. I began to sense strongly in my spirit that he was asking me to do something which felt awful: to give up the last pieces of my big, shiny, beautiful, important dream. It took my stubborn heart time and tears and lots of back and forth, but God finally led me to a place where I was willing to give up my dream for him. For the first time in 8 years, I didn’t have a clear purpose or a plan for where I was going next. All I could do was exist and live with a day-by-day, moment-to-moment reliance on God.
I can’t say that everything in my life worked out perfectly once I surrendered my dream to God, but I can say that things got better. God brought me peace and joy in the season I was in. Slowly but surely, he began to open doors in my life again. In my personal life, I made new and surprising friendships. In my spiritual life, I became more connected to my church than I ever had, and grew deeply in my relationship with God. In my professional life, God actually turned a rejection from one place that had interviewed me into an out of the blue acceptance – and from that job, he lead me to another, even better one.
In my season of shattered dreams, God brought about joy, growth, and amazingly unexpected blessings. I began to see that in challenging me to give up my dreams, he had actually been making room in my life to build something better.
To be honest, I still don’t know exactly where God is leading me in the grand scheme of things – but for now, I’m okay with that. As He leads me day-by-day, I continue to believe that He will open the doors He wants to open for me, when he wants to open them. Maybe there’s still a big, beautiful, grand purpose hiding just around the corner; maybe he’s even working it into my life already. No matter what, I know that the plan he has is good, and that he will continue to work things together for his glory.
Friend, if you are in a season where God is asking you to give up on your big, beautiful, shiny dreams, don’t lose heart. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He isn’t planning to abandon you or shelve you – He’s actually just moving you at His pace, to the exact place you need to be, for this season. Sometimes, He does his best work ‘behind the scenes’, pulling beautiful blessings out of unexpected circumstances.
In my season of shattered dreams, I discovered peace, joy, and hope – and I believe that you will too. Trust that your good shepherd knows where he wants to lead you, and don’t give up just yet.
~Abi Peters – Grade 8 Girls Leader
Jeremiah 29:11 ESV
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
