I turned off the expressway only to be blocked by a sanitation truck. I threw the car into reverse. Just then we heard screams: "Help, help! My baby!"

Smoke and flames were gushing out of a fourth-floor window where a woman clutched a baby in her arms. We scrambled out of the car. Bruce ran to a fire alarm box, then raced back. "Quick," he said to me, "your coat." In an instant I took off my long leather coat and we held it between us. "Drop the baby," Bruce yelled.

The baby seemed to float gently down to us, landing right in the center of my coat. She was dressed in a pink snowsuit with her hands tucked in. She gazed up at me, then closed her eyes and fell asleep.

Soon the firemen arrived and rescued the mother. As she was ruched to the ambulance, she called out, "Where's my baby?"

"The baby's fine," I assured her.

I was very late arriving at work. Then I thought back to what had happened that morning. Bruce's errand, my change of coat, the snarled traffic, the sanitation truck...Yes, our timing was off that day, but God's timing was perfect!

Karen Pane, Brooklyn, New York

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