A Picture in a Shop Window
Baha'i Stories for Children · Read original
When in Bahá'í history
Paris (today: Paris, France)
There was once a little child who recognized ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. She lived in America, and her story is rather strange, for she knew about Him before she had even seen His picture. He was far across the ocean when she said to her mother one day, “Mummy, if Jesus were here what would you do?”
Her mother answered, “I would go to Him as fast as I could!”
“Well, Mummy, He is here in the world somewhere,” she told her mother.
“Now Precious, what do you mean? How do you know?”
Her little girl then said, "He told me so Himself, so He must be here."
The mother was puzzled because her daughter was so sure, and the mother prayed that she would know what it all meant.
The next day, the child asked her mother why she had not gone to see Lord Jesus. "He's told me two times that He is here," she insisted.
But her mother could only say, "Mummy doesn't know where He is - how can I find Him?"
The little girl was not discouraged. That afternoon while the two of them were out walking she saw something that made her stop and cry out. "There He is! There He is!" She was trembling with excitement, for in the window of a magazine store there was a picture of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá!
Her mother hurried into the store and bought the paper with the picture and there she found out where He was. He was in Paris, far away across the ocean.
And do you know, she did just what she told her little girl she would do -- she made the journey to Paris as fast as she could.
There she saw the One Whose love was so great for everyone that it could reach people all around the world!
(Child’s Way magazine, vol. 2, no. 6, November–December 1971)
Source: Child’s Way magazine, November–December 1971, via Baha'i Stories for Children (https://bahaistoriesforchildren.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-little-girl-who-saw-abdul-baha.html). The mother's own account, given in Paris in 1911, is recorded in Lady Blomfield, The Chosen Highway, Part III, chapter 3, "'Abdu'l-Bahá in Paris".
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Various. *Baha'i Stories for Children*. https://bahaistoriesforchildren.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-little-girl-who-saw-abdul-baha.html
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