A Perfect Plan

    I was nine years old. It was the same year that we had moved into Ozzie’s house that we moved away due to my father’s loss of work. There would be a job in Connecticut, so my father’s boss said. My father was a carpenter, just like Jesus. When we got up there, in late fall, there was no work. We had literally dragged everything up with us: our furniture and every one of our possessions up for nothing. We ended up moving

back to Florida within thirty days of arriving. For three weeks or so I and my mother lived with my grandparents, and my father lived with my aunt.

    My father had found a house in Key West, where there was supposed to be work, and my parents began to pack… for they were about to buy the house. The day before they were set to leave for the new house, my mother saw an ad in the newspaper for a condo right on the beach. The backyard… was literally the beach and the Atlantic Ocean. This house was chosen instead, and we moved into it in January of 2008. The house was several miles from my grandparents’ senior community.

    Why is it a miracle? Let’s start from the beginning.

    You are probably asking why when we moved up to Connecticut, God moved us back to Florida exactly a month later. And you are also asking why God prevented us from moving to Key West, one of the greatest dreams of the American people. I will tell you why. A year after we moved into the beach house several miles

from my grandparents’ community, my father passed away. If my single mother and I had been stuck alone without any close relatives to help us we would have been in big

trouble, whether we would have been in Key West or Connecticut.

    Nothing short of God’s perfect plan, don’t you think?

Sincerely,
Olivia Hamel