What if I Had Gotten In the Car?

It is so to me amazing how I can look back and see the many roads traveled that make up the map that is my life. When I lay it all out and look at choices I've made, and the possible outcomes and consequences web out before my eyes, it is astonishing to see how closely the Savior has traveled, silent and unseen. But sometimes He isn't silent.

When I was thirteen, we were still pretty poor and there was never much money for anything. Sometimes after school, I would stand looking in the shop windows downtown and daydream about going in and buying those things one day.
I was walking home from school one day when a car pulled up by the curb. The driver - an older man - rolled the passenger side window down and waved me over. I was still about a mile away from home, and wary of strangers, I kept walking, but the man continued to slowly roll along side me. This part of town wasn't the worst, but it wasn't the best either and the main road I walked down carried many shady characters to the government housing project where I lived. When I reached the corner, the man pulled up in front of me, slipped a hundred dollar bill on the seat and said it was mine if I got in. This did not shock me at all because it was something that happened frequently in my neck of the woods, but this was the first time it had ever happened to me, and I was suddenly nervous. A voice inside my head prompted me to walk away quickly and get to an area with more people. I did and he finally quit following me.

Had I gotten in that car, I might not have ever made it home. Many girls didn't. Had I gotten in that car and did make it back, I would most likely have been even more emotionally scarred than I already was. Had I taken that ride with a stranger for cash, I may have slipped head-first down the road to a hellish world that many don't return from. Fortunately, the voice in my head had been stronger than my desire for filthy money. I would like to think that deep down, I could never have done something like that. I'm grateful that I listened and heeded the prompting to quickly walk away. But what if I hadn't?

We have no idea how many times in our lives Heavenly Father has prompted a choice in us that has steered us from one path to another.Yes, we still make mistakes and we always will because we are human, and believe me, I've made some major ones, but I am slowly learning to recognize that voice when I hear it, and I am freshly amazed every time I pull out that map that is my life and study the roads webbing the page - roads that stretched from barren wastelands, through rocky ridges, melding into rich, green countrysides with flowing streams and ripening trees. Every road on my map was, and is, necessary to complete it, and hopefully I still have many roads left to build.