By Amma Amegashie

A graduation in sight. A PhD application awaiting a decision. A job offer that didn’t feel right. A residence permit nearing expiration. A strong desire to return home. And a heart caught somewhere between confusion and anxiety.

Photo: Ammah Amegashie

This was my story in June 2018.

My family would have preferred to have me home. Among my friends, however, the conversations were a mixture of hope and discouragement.

One group sang the familiar chorus: “With a foreign degree, you can get any job you want.” Another sang a very different song: “Make sure you come back with a job. There are no jobs on this side. And if you already have a job there, just stay there (abroad) and do it.”

Meanwhile, time was running out. I needed to figure out what to do before my residence permit expired.

By then, the voices warning me about the lack of jobs and the high unemployment rate back home had grown louder. I needed more time, not necessarily to make a decision, but to give myself room to make one without the pressure of a ticking clock.

Fifteen days. That was all I thought I needed.

So, I extended my permit, hoping that within those extra days, I could secure admission to a PhD program and perhaps have a clearer path forward. Instead, all I got was the hope of a later admission.

And then, suddenly, there I was, with a one-way ticket in hand and just one day left on my residence permit.

I was Accra-bound, without a plan.

I was anxious, worried, and constantly wondering what would become of me: my foreign degree, my career, my life.

I knew God had a plan for me, but I didn’t know exactly what that plan was or how it would unfold.

At that time, one of my favorite scriptures to pray through was Jeremiah 29:11:

“ 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.”

I held on to those words even when I couldn’t see beyond the uncertainty in front of me. I didn’t have the answers or know what the next chapter would look like. I simply chose to trust that God could see what I couldn’t.

But somewhere along the way, the journey became real and tough.

I was tempted to knock on foreign doors again. After all, I had a foreign degree; I had possibilities. I could pursue the PhD, take the job offer, or find another opportunity abroad.

But I chose to SURRENDER.

I stopped pursuing the PhD admission and walked away from the job offer. It was one thing to say I trusted God, and another to surrender the plans I had made for myself and trust Him with my career.

In that season, my Heavenly Father reminded me to:

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” Proverbs 3:5–6

Those words became more than a scripture I prayed. They became an invitation to trust God beyond what made sense to me.

I didn’t know where the path was leading. I only knew who was leading me.

Eight years on, as I look back at that season, I can confidently affirm this: God indeed had a better plan for me.

The foreign degree was not wasted. The closed doors were not wasted. The uncertainty was not wasted. Even the plans I had to surrender were not wasted.

What felt like a detour was, in many ways, God redirecting my steps.

And what felt like uncertainty was not the end of my story. It was actually the beginning of something I could not have imagined at the time.

And perhaps, that is one of the lessons for me: sometimes, trusting God with our lives may mean being willing to let go of the path we thought we were supposed to take.

Sometimes, faith is not knowing what comes next, but it is simply knowing who holds what comes next.

Amma Gyapomaah Amegashie is the West Africa Network Coordinator for City to City Africa and also leads the Purpose Beyond Paycheck cohort in Accra. She is passionate about seeing Accra and its people and industries renewed by the gospel of Jesus Christ.