Trusting God's Voice

Why We Sold Our Snow Shovels and Moved to Florida




My wife and sons and I have been Floridians for just over a year.  We've adapted to a routine and are making our way through life as most Americans do, as we did back in Nebraska for so many years.

We're just doing it in Central Florida now.

Along the way we've been asked why we made the move when we did.  Some think I'm retired.  No, I still work a day job. 

As to why we chose to move here, the best reason I can come up with is this: God told us to.

I know what a lot of you are thinking....."Potter must have wandered south of the Mason-Dixon line and found himself some religion!"

Truthfully, I've always had religion to some extent, but I never before had I felt that God actually spoke to me.  However in January of 2011, things began to happen in our lives and I feel they happened for a reason.  

I really think it was God talking to us.

Now, let me tell you a story.

Fifty years ago, my wife was separated from her little brother.  She was seven and he was five.  There's no point in rehashing the details.   
                                                                                                                                                                 
November of 1963 was the last she saw of her brother for more than 47 years.  She ended up in Nebraska.  

As a child, and even into her teen years, Karen's pleas to be reconnected with her brother went  unheeded.

After we were married in 1978, Karen was more determined than ever to locate the little boy left behind.  The years went by and the trail grew colder.

With the advent of the Internet, she Googled her heart out.  Her brother's name was not an uncommon one, which made it all the more difficult.

Nearly a half century later it was finally time for God to play his hand.  It was a Royal Flush.

In January of 2011, Karen made a connection that put her on the right path.  She was pretty certain she had located her brother.

Karen wrote him a letter.  A carefully written missive sinks in; a phone call can shock your world with too much abruptness.

A few days later, shortly after my wife's 55th birthday, our phone rang.  She answered it.  It was her brother.

He and Karen both knew in that moment that a nearly life long load had been lifted from their hearts.  It was the best birthday present she had ever received.

Karen's brother lived in Florida.  He had been there for years.  Of all places we somehow would have never guessed the Sunshine State.

Karen and our sons flew down to visit in May of 2011.  She and her brother bonded on sight.

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This was the way things looked at our Old Nebraska Home on Christmas, 2009.  It snowed all day on December 25th, the wind  blew with a cold, crackling stiffness, and I couldn't get the vehicles out of the driveway.

My wife and our sons opened our gifts while I gulped hot coffee and the furnace lumbered along, working overtime.  My mother-in-law and her husband were forced to remain in their house across town.  Our turkey was already thawed and ready to prepare for the oven, so I promised to buy another bird and we'd all have Christmas dinner together a week later, on New Year's, if the weather improved.

Now this isn't to say that this was the model for every Nebraska Christmas.  We enjoyed 50 degree temps in 2011, our last Christmas on the Plains.  There were several Christmases dotting a green landscape, that were even warmer.

Maybe it was age nagging at us, perhaps just a midlife discontentment.  Whatever it was, 2009 left a lasting impression on us.

Karen and I had always talked about retiring in a warmer climate.  But that was still years down the road, or so we thought. 

We had no idea where that road would take us.  In our discussions, Florida had never even popped up in our cross hairs.

But when she returned from her reunion with her brother and his family, we talked.  We knew where it was we'd retire when the time came.

Once in awhile, there's something that perches on your shoulder like a comfortable bird, pecking at your mind until you finally get the hint.

"Why wait?" I asked Karen one day.  "Let's put the house up for sale and see what happens."

The housing market in Grand Island, Nebraska was not particularly a boomer last summer, in 2012.  But there was no harm and little expense in sticking our toes in the water.

Karen was working at the time in a Christian-based book and gift shop.  She told me about a very popular item that customers swore by.  It was a statue of St. Joseph and it came with a prayer and instructions.  Realtors actually recommended buying it!

We followed the directions and buried the tiny likeness of the carpenter a foot in the ground just behind the house, and upside down.  Apparently, the good saint was supposed to attract a buyer for your house with a fair offer and when the deal was done, you were to dig up the statue, which you would supposedly find not upside down as you left it, but right side up.

Not many days later, after lots of lookers and no offers, we received a phone call from our realtor.

"I have a cash buyer.  That means a quick deal, no inspection.  They want an early close so they can begin renting it out."

It appeared that the Good Lord was working too fast.  Now it had turned frantic.  Everything needed to gel for us. 

My wife was in the background in the meantime, researching townhouses to rent in Florida, the best moving rates, and airline itineraries.  We planned to sell our vehicles rather than move them.

Well, if God wanted us in Florida, we thought, we guessed He must have the rest figured out.  We accepted the buyer's offer.  Our closing date was a mere two weeks away.

I had a job I had been at for 23 years.  With a deep breath, I tendered my resignation.

So now we had a place to live come the end of July.  Yet it was only June and we had a lot of packing to do.  We needed to buy another month's time.

Back to the realtor.  "Would the buyer rent our own house to us for the month of July?"

He made a call.  Yes, he told us.  She'd be more than happy to do that.

Another problem solved.

Meanwhile, Karen was trying to procure airline tickets for us and our sons.  There was a flight from Grand Island to Dallas, connecting with another flight to Tampa.  Seats were going fast on both flights.

I contacted a trucking company in Grand Island.   For what I considered a reasonable rate, they would drop off a 28' trailer at our house.  We would load it from the front, mark off our used space, and erect a barrier to separate our belongings from the rest of the trailer.  Then the driver would return on a given date, pick up the trailer and head to Florida.

Once we had the dates secured, Karen returned to the airline travel issue.  There were exactly four seats left on the Nebraska to Texas flight and six remaining on the Dallas to Florida connection.  We grabbed them.

Everything, every detail then fell into place uniformly like a stack of dominoes.  And here we are.

In the course of our lives together, nothing had ever gone quite as smoothly for us as our move to Florida.  And now, when I see Karen and her brother together, I know the hand of God was upon us and it was unmistakeably His voice in our ears, giving us direction. 

I don't attribute everything that happens in life to coincidence or fate.  Some things you just know were in God's hands all the time.

Karen and her brother know that.

When I take a long, hard look at life, I have to marvel and say, "Thank you, God," and as the Irish say, "Saints be praised!"

And that statue of Joseph sits atop a book case in our living room, upright and smiling.

How blessed we are.


Copyright 2013 by Wendel Potter 

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