Ten o'clock and I'm still at the office, I thought. I'd been putting in a lot of extra hours lately. I barely had a moment to think, pray, talk to my friends - just to relax. Everyone else had left hours ago. I'd promised myself I would get home early tonight. So why was I still at work? Just one more fax, I told myself. Then I'll leave.

I put the papers on the machine and punched in the number of a client in Los Angeles. Then I pressed the "send" button. An error message flashed on the display beside the number. I looked at it closely. Odd. That's not the number I dialed. This one was a 714 area code. That's Anaheim, I thought. Why would the fax machine be calling there? I tried again, carefully dialing my client's number. The same thing happened.

Finally, I decided to call the mysterious 714 number. The phone rang a few times. Then a woman answered shakily, "Hello?"

I explained to her that I had been trying to send a fax.

"There's no fax machine here," she said. "This is a convalescent home. You called an old lady."

I quickly apologized for bothering her so late at night.

"Oh, no, my dear, I'm glad you called. I hardly ever get any visitors. In fact, I was just sitting here asking the Lord for a friendly voice."

The old woman and I chatted for a few minutes. Then a few more. She told me all about her life in the nursing home. I talked about my job. Before I knew it, we were talking about faith too.

"Thank you so much for calling, Dear," the woman finally said. "You made my night."

Now it was really late. But all the way home a good feeling stayed with me. I didn't even think about the fax until the next day, when I got to work. I called my client to apologize for not sending him the papers.

"What do you mean?" he asked. "I got your fax late last night. It came in just after ten."

I guess I must have had the right number all along.

Terri Kilroy, Meridian, Idaho

Source: Guideposts, Copyright (c) March 2004, http://www.guideposts.org as seen in Wit and Wisdom