I was drowning in paperwork! There’s no way I’d make my deadline…

The end of the semester always meant a blizzard of paperwork when I was an associate professor at North Dakota State University. One year I was particularly snowed under and the deadline for handing in marks loomed.

I looked at the stacks piled high on my desk: 2500 exams and research projects. I needed to sort them before I could even think of grades, but the task seemed insurmountable. I’ll be here forever; I thought and asked God to help me get my work done somehow.

I had just begun reading and organizing when I sensed someone standing in the doorway and heard a quiet knock. "Would you like some help?" a young woman asked. "What timing!" I said, looking her up and down in disbelief, thinking she was a stray graduate student with time on her hands.

With no introduction and needing little direction she plunged into the mess, working quickly. We fashioned a smooth, high-speed assembly line. Neither of us paused to talk and in less than an hour we finished. Now I was ready to grade.

"Is there anything else?" she asked. "Thanks, I can take it from here," I said distractedly, plunging into the first exam. A hectic week later I handed in my marks; on time. Then it occurred to me: I had never seen the young woman before and I had not seen her since.

She wasn’t a colleague and couldn’t have been a student. The most curious thing of all? Campus had been closed then for semester break. Yet my prayer had been heard and help came knocking.