Like I had so many times before, I stopped. A painful, soul-draining decision faced me. One path led toward my dorm room, where I knew I should go and get started on my classwork. The other path led to where I wanted to go—down the hill to the boathouse on the lapping shore of Lake Carnegie.

I knew, my crew teammates—or were they my ex-teammates?—were putting their long, slender competitive rowing boats into the water, climbing in, locking oars to gunwales and knifing through the glassy surface of the lake. I ached to join them. Why, God, I demanded, can’t I be out on that lake too?

Months before—it seemed a lifetime—I’d sat in a doctor’s office looking at an X ray of my spine. “See this? This is why you’re in pain. Most people have five lumbar vertebrae. You have six. That means the vertebra that normally fuses with your pelvis, supporting your back when you bend and lift, is in the wrong position. Every time you take a rowing stroke, you’re straining your back terribly. I’m sorry. I know it’s not what you want to hear.”

If I wasn’t Beth the Princeton rower, who was I? I wanted to be the Beth I’d been dreaming of ever since I’d found out there was such a thing as the Ivy League. Despite the doctor’s admonition, I’d refused to abandon rowing. I had seen physical therapists, chiropractors, back specialists. I’d tried exercises, bed rest and painkillers. The pain was still with me. It was worse than ever. But the alternative—giving up rowing, going back to being plain old Beth—was intolerable. I had to get back into that rowing boat.

I simply had to.

I remembered so clearly the day that I’d discovered rowing. She was wearing a striking black and orange jacket with PRINCETON CREW printed across the back. “Interested in rowing?” she asked, holding out a clipboard. “We’re having an informational meeting tomorrow.” I knew zero about rowing. The idea of it, though, suddenly struck me—that was the kind of elite, Ivy League sport I craved. I looked again at her jacket. I wanted one of them too. I signed up.

I spent hours every day on the water, on rowing machines, lifting weights, running. The spring of my freshman year, my coach said, “Beth, I’m moving you up to the first boat.” Yes! I thought, convinced I was right where I needed to be. Every practice my back hurt more. One day I arrived at the boathouse so stiff, I couldn’t even get my oar into the water. My coach said the words I’d been dreading: “You need to go to the infirmary.”

The minute I left his office, though, I began planning my return to the water. There had to be a way to work around that extra vertebra. Surely this new life, this new identity I’d made for myself, wouldn’t be undone by some random physical limitation. All summer I saw doctors and physical therapists. I exercised. Stretched. Rested. I even reconnected with church, something I’d let slip at school. I went on a mission trip to Mexico with my hometown youth group—partly in hopes that God would reward me by taking my pain away. I returned to Princeton in the fall. My back hurt more than ever. I couldn’t even practice.

I tried my question one more time. Why? Why was my life turning out this way? Didn’t God want me to become brand-new Beth? I held still, straining for an answer. Nothing. Well then, I asked, why was I made this way? Who was I supposed to be? Yourself. The word was so commonplace, but it took me aback anyway. What a strange answer. Of course I was myself—wasn’t I? Suddenly my eyes fell on my rowing jack­et. PRINCETON CREW. I looked at that jacket, thinking back to all the times I’d worn it. Brand-new Beth. Beth 2.0. Was that myself? Myself. It was still my voice saying that word. But suddenly, in some strange way, I knew what God meant by it too. What had I been doing trying so hard to trade that Beth in for some shiny new version of my own devising? What was wrong with me just as I was? This time the inner voice was certain. Nothing.

The very next day I walked to the boathouse and told my coach I was leaving the team. As I walked back up to campus under glorious autumn foliage, my heart felt lighter than it had in months. By the end of the week the pain in my back was almost completely gone. You could call that a miracle. I think the explanation is more straightforward. Anyone who tries to do what she was never meant to do, or to be who she was never meant to be, is bound to encounter difficulty. Quitting rowing put me on a new—or was it old?—and wonderful path. I participated in a fellowship group and made friendships I still cherish.

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Beth Adams graduated Princeton, married and became a book editor in New York. She lives the East Coast life she’d always dreamed of. Not one of her devising. The one she was meant to live.

This story was adapted with permission from “Growing Pains” by Beth Adams, which appeared in the April 2009 issue of Guideposts magazine. Copyright © 2009 by Guideposts. All rights reserved.