Lost and Found

A woman was walking slowly into town wiping tears away from her eyes with her sleeve when a girl appeared along the path and asked, “Why are you so sad?”

The woman held out her small, worn sack and cried, “All that I own in the world doesn’t even fill this tiny bag.”

Without hesitation, the girl grabbed the bag and ran off.

The woman was too shocked to follow at first and when she realized what had happened, the girl was out of sight. The woman continued down the road sadder than ever.

Up around the bend, the girl left the sack in the middle of the road where the woman was sure to find it.

When the woman rounded the bend and saw her bag, she laughed for the first time in years. “My bag! I thought you were lost for good!”

As she watched from her hiding spot in the trees, the girl smiled to herself. “That’s one way to make somebody happy.”

Adaptation of a Sufi tale

Source: Stories in a Nutshell