Mother met ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in 1912, when she was 15 years old. He told her that she would grow like a tree and have many branches. Years later she realized, as so often happens, the meaning of this prediction. It was twenty years before she declared her belief in Bahá’u’lláh, and she has observed many times 'it takes a tree 20 years to mature'.
Timing
Reginald Grant Barrow, Mother's Stories: Stories of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Early Believers told by Muriel Ives Barrow Newhall to her son, p. 5
I was a child in Tehran when at the age of seven I contracted tuberculosis. There was no hope of recovery. The wisdom of this sickness became clear later. If I had not been ill, I would have been obliged to go to Mazindaran but because of this sickness I stayed in Tehran ..This was when the Blessed Beauty was in prison in Tehran. Therefore, I was afforded the honor of being in His company during His journey to Iraq. When the right time arrived, I suddenly became well, after the doctors had given up all hope of recovery.
Stories Told by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 104
