Shoghi Effendi did live up to the trust placed in him by `Abdu'l-Bahá

In The Chosen Highway by Lady Blomfield, (Bahá'í Publishing Committee, Wilmette, Illinois), in the chapter entitled, The Bride of `Abdu'l-Bahá, pg. 90, Munírih Khánum relates to Lady Blomfield:

“For fifty years my beloved and I were together. Never were we separated, save during His visits to Egypt, Europe, and America.

"O my Beloved husband and my lord! How shall I speak of Him?

"You, who have known Him, can imagine what my fifty years have been—how they fled by in an atmosphere of love and joy and perfection of the Peace which passeth all understanding, in the radiant light of which I await the day when I shall be called to join Him, in the celestial garden of transfiguration.

"Five of my children died in the poisonous climate of 'Akká.

"The bad air was, in truth, only the outside material reason. The inner spiritual reason was that no son of the Master should grow into manhood.

"When my darling little son Husayn passed away, Bahá'u'lláh wrote the following: 'The knowledge of the reason why your sweet baby has been called back is in the mind of God, and will be manifested in His own good time. To the prophets of God the present and the future are as one.'

"Therefore, I understand how that wisdom has ordained the uniting of the two families, that of Bahá'u'lláh and of the Báb, in the person of Shoghi Effendi, eldest son of our daughter, Diyayyih Khanum, by her marriage with Aqa Mirza Hadi Afnan.”

Here you see the woman, Munírih Khánum, who endured so much over the fifty years she shared with `Abdu'l-Bahá, the loss of five children including her only son, and who still understood the reason for that loss, that the family of the Báb and Bahá'u'lláh should be united and, from that union, produce the first Guardian, Shoghi Effendi.

Does it seem at all reasonable to suppose that Shoghi Effendi, knowing the circumstances of his position, should fail to fulfill that trust placed in him by `Abdu'l-Bahá? Would he not know of the sacrifice that had been made for his birth? When he was chosen by `Abdu'l-Bahá as the first in a line of future Guardians, very explicitly outlined in the Will and Testament of `Abdu'l-Bahá, would he then have chosen to pass to that same celestial garden NOT having chosen his successor, and NOT having fulfilled the duty placed on him by `Abdu'l-Bahá?

I don’t think so!

Shoghi Effendi did live up to the trust placed in him by `Abdu'l-Bahá and chose his successor in accordance with the Will and Testament of `Abdu'l-Bahá. That successor was Charles Mason Remey, the second Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith, who, in turn chose as his successor the current Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith, Joel B Marangella.

And thus the sacrifice of both `Abdu'l-Bahá and his beloved wife, Munírih, was not in vain, but part of God’s eternal plan.

In the preface to the book, Lady Blomfield quotes `Abdu'l-Bahá: “I am walking my chosen highway. I know the destination.”

By Hand of Cause Marilyn Meyer