Not Every Closed Door is a Missed Opportunity

In May 2023, a week after graduating from high school, I packed my bags and moved halfway across the world to Fargo, North Dakota.

I remember sitting on the plane, reflecting on the five-year plan I had made for myself. Graduate high school. Get into medical school in India. Become a doctor.

Having attended a medical preparatory boarding school, I had spent years believing this was what my future would look like. In India, students generally begin medical school immediately after high school, and I had imagined myself doing exactly that. I had not even seriously considered attending college in the United States.

But there I was, on a plane to Fargo, with an entirely different future ahead of me.

In some ways, I was living a dream. When I was in middle school, I would watch my aunt FaceTime my mom from America and dream about what it would be like to live there. It seemed almost impossible. Now, that dream was becoming a reality.

Yet I was upset.

I was leaving behind the future I had spent years preparing for. I was not going to my dream medical school. Instead, I was moving to what felt like the middle of nowhere - North Dakota - where I would have to earn an undergraduate degree before I could even apply to medical school. I had not even looked into colleges in Fargo.

Two weeks after moving to North Dakota, my mom's newly made friend, who had been living here for only two months, told us about North Dakota State University. She encouraged me to apply.

And so I did.

That summer, I worked full-time, juggling two jobs to earn enough money to begin college in the fall. Just three months after moving halfway across the world, I began my first semester at NDSU.

I threw myself into campus life. I joined clubs, participated in activities and looked for opportunities to build deeper friendships. I started my medical laboratory science degree, and things seemed to be falling into place.

Until they weren't.

As I approached the next stage of my program, I learned that my clinical year would take me to Nebraska. After everything I had built at NDSU and the community I had found through BisonCatholic, I was not ready to leave Fargo.

So I switched programs.

I applied to respiratory care just a week after making the decision, and I got in.

Looking back, I realize how much that decision changed my life. If you know me, you know I do not necessarily have a laboratory personality. I love talking to people, patient care and being able to serve. Respiratory care gave me the opportunity to pursue a career that aligned more closely with who I am.

And I cannot help but wonder: What would have happened if my original five-year plan had worked out?

I might have made it to the medical school I had always dreamed of attending. But I also might never have experienced the life I have built here.

I would have missed meeting the people who shaped me, discovering communities that became a second home and having the opportunity to serve, lead and grow. I also would have missed out on learning and growing in my faith.

Through these changes, I have been reminded that my plans are not always the plans God has for me.

For a long time, I struggled with that idea. I wanted to believe that if I worked hard enough and made the right decisions, everything would fall into place. But I was learning to trust God even when I could not see where He was leading me.

God's ways are higher than our ways. Sometimes, we are simply not meant to understand everything in the moment. We are called to trust Him through it.

Looking back at my four years at NDSU, I can see how God worked through the unexpected. Romans 8:28 tells us that “We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”

I have become a better person through the difficult situations I navigated, the opportunities I lost and the opportunities that called me to become more than I thought I could be.

My education has extended far beyond the classroom. NDSU has shaped my faith, my friendships, my future career and the person I am becoming.

I think about the girl who boarded that plane in May 2023, convinced that her future had been taken away from her. She had no idea Fargo would become home or that changing her plans would lead her to a path she would come to love.

As I approach the end of my time at NDSU, I find myself thinking about all the things I once believed needed to happen for my life to turn out right.

Sometimes, we are asked to let go of something we have spent years pursuing. And sometimes, the opportunities we never wanted become the experiences we are most grateful for.

I am not saying every disappointment is automatically a blessing or that every closed door immediately leads to something better. There were moments when I genuinely did not understand why things were happening the way they were. But I have learned that the Lord can bring good out of any situation.

If my original plan had worked out exactly as I wanted, I might have missed the very experiences that made my time at NDSU so meaningful.

I came to North Dakota believing I was leaving my dream behind. Four years later, I realize I was being led toward a different one.

And perhaps that is what I want to remember most as I leave NDSU: sometimes, the things we are upset about are the very things we once prayed for.

Sometimes, the places we are frustrated to be in are the places we once dreamed of reaching. Sometimes, the life we are struggling to accept is the very life we once asked God for.

Not every closed door is a missed opportunity. Sometimes, it is an invitation to trust that God is leading us somewhere we never would have thought to go.

And sometimes, we just need to look back and realize that we are living in the answer to a prayer we once prayed.