Essay Contest

I received this e-mail from a girl a few days ago and I would like to share it with all of you:

I'm a procrastinator by nature, but I live for the time crunch; finishing up at the last minute always gets my adrenaline pumping. The deadline for an Essay Contest was no different; I knew about it months in advance and had even written a feeble outline, but on The Day, the essay was nowhere near finished. I cancelled a babysitting job to gain writing time, and I called and emailed all the people who had been helping me write it. Everybody put their two cents in, and my father was editing it for me when I realized I would not have time to finish up the essay and bring it to the post office to be postmarked by that day. Luckily my father knew of a post office that closed at six o'clock; it was nearly five at the time. Relieved, I quickly finished up the last draft, fixed the mistakes and printed out the papers, all while keeping one eye on the clock. The time was now 5:50, and once again, I was racing the clock to get something done in time. I jumped into my car and nearly killed...a lot of things in my haste to make it to the post office in under ten minutes. Hashem was with me in a very apparent way; the lights were mostly green, the streets relatively empty and I was able to find the building easily, having never been there before. I parked, jumped out and raced towards the building, checking my phone as I went. 5:54. I suddenly stopped and nearly burst into tears as the realization hit me: I had forgotten to bring the address.I had no one to send my essay to. I could not believe it. There was no way this could be happening! I had spent HOURS upon HOURS writing this, I had cancelled my job, I had prolonged the deadline, but now it seemed that all my efforts had been futile. The clock was ticking, and this time, I wasn't going to make it. The essay needed to be postmarked by that day, and now I would be automatically disqualified from the contest. I frantically dialed my father's phone, only to remember that he was in shul. No one at my house answered either; there was no way to get the address.For reasons I cannot explain, I kept walking. I just walked into the post office, frantic thoughts flitting around my head. Maybe the person would postmark it and then let me take it home to address it? Maybe they could look it up for me...I entered the cool building and looked around. I noticed a girl from the community standing with her mother.

"Hey" her mother said to me "I bet you're here for the contest, huh?"I stared, and then it all clicked.

"OMG, do you have the address?" I practically shouted, and before she had finished nodding "yes", I had snatched the paper out of her hands and ran up to the desk.

"I need this postmarked by today!" I gasped. The lady looked at me, bored and aggravated, and said, "You have two minutes"I never wrote so messily in my life.

"Can you read it?""Yup. Fifty-six cents, please". Trembling, I handed over the coins, thanking her and the two Angels from G-d profusely.

"Oh, stop" the girls mother said. "It's pure Hashgacha Pratis; we only found out about the deadline TODAY so we had to go to a post office that closed later. I'm so glad we could be here to give you the address"I watched the post-lady dump my letter amongst all the others, and walked out of the office with tears in my eyes. In just under five minutes, an ENTIRE situation had changed, first for the worse, then for the best! Mah Rab ma'asecha Hashem!