Stand at the crossroads and look;
    ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
    and you will find rest for your souls.

We trust ourselves to make choices every day; what we wear, what we eat, the route we take to our schools and jobs. Some choices are not easy like, which career path to take or which house to buy, some are on auto pilot; like brushing our teeth or kissing and hugging our loved one’s goodnight.  We go through life not even realizing just how many choices we make. These kinds of choices are expected and a part of life. Although we have the intelligence from God to think these things out on our own, I’m sure we still bring these kinds of things to God-As we want His guidance in All Things.    Even when we don’t know the right decision- we still Trust in God to Guide us.

Sometimes in our lives we are faced with a choice that’s more like a crossroads, a life changing decision that determines the rest of your existence on earth with no turning back and can potentially change life as we know it to be. These kinds of choices are a bit trickier and terrifying!   No better time to listen to God! In these times I pray that we are turning to Him for guidance and trusting in His Process!

Even Though we Call on God and We Fully Trust Him with our Lives; We still have to execute a decision, make a choice at the crossroads; we have to choose the path that is Good.

Even when we don’t understand.

Today I want to share with you, a pivotal moment in my life,  when I was given the opportunity, or the burden, depending on how you look at it, to Choose a completely different path for my life. Everything I knew was about to change and I had NO CLUE how I was going to figure this out. This choice came to fruition for me after some life changing events that forced me to really listen to God and ask Him to show me the right path for my life and trust in His Process.

Jeremiah 6:16 New International Version (NIV)

¹⁶ This is what the Lord says:

“Stand at the crossroads and look;
    ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
    and you will find rest for your souls.
    But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’

This verse resonates with one of the most important times of my life; choosing to leave my culture, all that I knew, and my whole entire family at 19 years old.

It reminds me of how, through the fear of losing all that I had, I relied on God to lead me to the Path He choose for me!

“Stand at the Crossroads, and Look”

Born into the Gypsy Culture, my lifestyle was fated for me before I was even conceived. I was to become a gypsy fortune telling wife.  That is the Gypsy way, the fate for all the girls in the culture; grow up, learn the basic skills of a woman (housecleaning, cooking, child rearing, making money), and prepare for marriage between the ages of 15-18. Then, get married and have children, then visualize your own daughter doing the same; it was a perfect predictable lifestyle and it was chosen for me.

But I wasn’t born predictable or perfect, and soon, I would realize I wasn’t interested in this predictable life I was born into.  By the time I was 17 it was easy to see I was not fit to be a “gypsy Girl”.  

I cooked and cleaned, and I learned the skill of fortune telling, which is the main source of income in the Gypsy culture, but my eyes were always on another life, another way; perhaps another path. I wanted more from life than this limited culture had to offer and I detested fortune telling; basically, lying for money. But I was not given a choice in the matter- not yet anyway.

My mother left when I was just a baby, then, my father re-married when I was 3; he married a woman who left a serious impression on me; technically one would call her a child abuser, but I think I’d rather see her as the woman who taught me survival.

 I was introduced to Christianity at 9, and I may not have yet been saved at that age, but ever since I found God and learned about Jesus, I knew I wanted more of God. I learned to Pray and did this often! I talked to God and asked Him to be with me and help me. I attended church and was baptized, but God was still not more important than the Culture to my family, Church and Prayers did not come before the cultural beliefs, so I felt conflicted! I knew this was wrong and that at least for me, God should come first!

By the time they divorced my father was 100% disabled with congestive heart failure, hypertension and diabetes all at the ripe old age of 31. I was 12 and pulled from school to take care of him.  Girls (and boys for that matter) aren’t encouraged to get education; it isn’t necessary in the eyes of the culture.  Fortune telling, and child rearing are definite priorities and take precedent over any non-gypsy skill.  None of these turns of events seemed to give off the impression I would soon be freed from my expectations; a matter of fact, I think I felt more doomed than any of my girl cousins, because not only was my life determined for me by way of cultural traditions, but I was now a caretaker of a sick man, with no mother, and essentially no home. I would spend the next 5 years taking care of my sick father, moving from one family members house, to the next, and then back again…… until my world would change forever; leading me down a completely different and unpredictable road.

ask for the ancient paths,

When I reached the age of 17 my father died. It was the most heart-breaking thing I had ever felt in my life. He was gone, and I was forced to live with my uncle. He owned several Fortune Telling parlors and told me that I had to run one of I wanted a bed to sleep in and food to eat. This meant doing something I dreaded doing; lying for money. It was something I had always dreaded doing growing up in my culture and the reason I say I was never a good fit to be a gypsy girl because this is the number 1 thing you must do, if you want to full fill your role as a woman in this culture; and I was terrible at it and I simply hated it! But, I could only endure so many physical beatings by my uncle, so I found myself doing the thing I detested most- to stop the abuse. It was a lose-lose situation.  Again, I found myself in a place where I didn’t see any choice or way out. However, my thoughts of a different life never left me, I just did not see a clear path to freedom. At least not yet.

By the time my father had passed, I knew if I stayed there, in that culture, with my family, I would Not Know God as I desired, because culture would come first. So, If I wanted God, I had to make a Choice.

It was NOT EASY!  I had so much at stake leaving!  Everything and everyone I knew was My Family, The Culture. I would risk being shunned, ridiculed, turned away, shut out, and if they ever found me; I would be beaten.  But as strong as my fear was of those things happening to me, my desire for Truth and God and knowing more about Him, was stronger; a matter of fact I would say it was also a logical decision.  Because I knew what my life would be like and how it would turn out with the Gypsys; But leaving the Gypsys was Unknown and one simply doesn’t make emotional decisions to leave what they know for something they don’t know, Without Logical reasoning.

I made a choice to leave what I knew, for something unknown because I believed that was the better path. My logic was; if my current lifestyle is against God’s teachings and “Learning more about God” was Not a part of that lifestyle, then changing my lifestyle was the choice for me.   Honestly, I didn’t need a reason to leave my culture, any person with eyes could see that the dysfunction, abuse, and crime that went on in the gypsy culture was enough reason to leave, But I didn’t leave to get away from them, I left to get closer to something better, My choice was based on knowing there was something More for me; something the culture could not offer me.

So, I was at the crossroads; I Asked for God’s Guidance, for the good way.

ask where the good way is, and walk in it