“Do you love me, Carmen, because you pity me?”
“No, indeed!” was the emphatic answer. “God’s children are not to be pitied––and I see in people only His children.”
“Well, why, then, do you love me?”
The girl replied quickly: “God is love. I am His reflection. I reflect Him to you. That’s loving you.
“And now,” she continued cheerily, “we are going to work together, aren’t we? You are first going to love everybody. And then you are going to see just what is right for you to do––what work you are to take up––what interests you are to have. But love comes first.”
“Tell me, Carmen, why are you in society? What keeps you there, in an atmosphere so unsuited to your spiritual life?”
“God.”
“Oh, yes,” impatiently. “But––”
“Well, Elizabeth dear, every step I take is ordained by Him, who is my life. I am where He places me. I leave everything to Him, and then keep myself out of the way. If He wishes to use me elsewhere, He will remove me from society. But I wait for Him.”
The woman looked at her and marveled. How could this girl, who, in her few brief years, had passed through fire and flood, still love the hand that guided her!