Chapter 6. Detour through the Desert
"One thing, however, made a special impression upon her. In all that great desert, there was not single green thing growing, neither tree nor flower nor plant save here and there a patch of straggly grey cacti.
On the last morning she was walking near the tents and huts of the desert dwellers, when in a lonely corner behind a wall she came upon a little golden-yellow flower, growing all alone. An old pipe was connected with a water tank. In the pipe was one tiny hole through which came an occasional drop of water. Where the drops fell one by one, there grew the little golden flower, though where the seed had come from, Much-Afraid could not imagine, for there were not birds anywhere and nor other growing things.
She stopped over the lonely, lovely little golden face, lifted up so hopefully and so bravely to the feeble drip, and cried out softly, 'What is your name, little flower, for I never saw one like you before.'
The tiny plant answered at once in a tone as golden as itself, 'Behold me! My name is Acceptance-with-Joy.'
Much-Afraid thought of the things which she had seen in the pyramid: the threshing-floor and the whirring wheel and the fiery furnace. Somehow the answer of the little holden flower which grew all alone in the waste of the desert stole into her heart and echoed there faintly but sweetly, filling her with comfort. She said to herself, 'He has brought me here when I did not want to come for his own purpose. I too, will look up into his face and say, 'Behold me! I am thy little handmaiden Acceptance-with-Joy.' Then she stooped down and picked up a pebble which was lying in the sand beside the flower and put it in the purse with the first altar stone."