Rivka’s Story as told to Sara Klarberg
Midterms were finally over, and I was ready to celebrate, but there wasn’t much to do. My siblings had another day of school, my mother was working, and I was bored.
Luckily, my friend Sari had a plan. She was leaving for the airport at 5 PM, but now it was only 2 PM, and she was sure we had enough time to go to American Dream, get the tee shirts that were on sale & make it back in time for her to leave. In typical Sari fashion, she had it all calculated down to the minute, with no room for any mistakes. I mean, what could possibly go wrong? Right?
We arranged our rides. Her mother would drive us there. My mother would pick us up. By now it was 2:15. We’d get to the mall at 2:35 and have an hour to shop. If we left by 4:35, Sari would be home in time to grab her suitcase and run.
The plan was perfect. We wouldn’t be bored. We’d have our shirts, and Sari would be back in time to go.
As we got into her mother’s car, I realized we might have one problem. My cell phone was on 1%. And Sari’s phone only works occasionally. A phone was kind of important, since I had to reach my mother to pick us up.
I asked her mother to use the charger, hoping my phone would charge enough during the 15-minute ride. And then, as we were approaching the exit, a truck in the lane next to us just wouldn’t let us change lanes, and because he was driving so slowly, there was a long line of cars behind him, which meant… we missed the exit.
Yup, with exactly one hour to shop, we were going for a detour. Her mother drove to the next exit, turned around, and headed back to American Dream. We now had 50 minutes to shop. I was feeling pretty annoyed. Every minute counted.
And then I realized, this was also a Thank You Hashem moment. When I looked at my phone, the battery had made it all the way up to 28%! We now had a charged working phone! I realized the truck and the missed exit, though annoying, had helped me get the phone charged.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, we both found shirts, had enough time to get a hot pretzel, and Sari made it back in time to leave for LA.
What I learned:
Sometimes, it’s the little things we almost forget that are really a small hug from Hashem. And when we recognize them, we can remember to thank Hashem for the things that seemed to go wrong but really helped us.
This article was found in Nekuda Tova Issue 73.
