بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful, Most Compassionate
Assalaamua alaykum
Dear Friends
I pray that you are well.
Who among us can say I breeze through my life having no sorrows? I am sure none of you can say this. Whose heart was broken at least once--perhaps more like thousands of times--either by our parents, our children, our beloved, our spouse, our teachers, our boss, our friends, .....? We don't remember the exact number. But they were so real the moment they happened. If you remember some of them, they were horrible, as though that was the end of your life, that we thought we could never be able to go through it again. Now we are here, we forgot and we only remember the last thing that happen to us. Imagine carrying all those sorrows in one go! If you had to carry all these sorrows of the last 20, 30, 40, ... years now in one go, it would be impossible to continue your life. It is Allah, al-Jabbar al-Qahhar, the One who makes the weak strong, the One who rectifies the heart after it is saddened, the One who took away the sorrows in your life, the One who heals your pain, He took everything and leave only one sorrow that you are experiencing right now. When you reflect on this, be thankful for every sorrows that He took away from you.
When you see somebody who is going through affliction, remind him/her to be patient. Allah wanted it to take place.What Allah wants will be, what Allah does not want will not be. He dominates everything. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him peace, has said that when Allah wants his slave to be in a certain level in Paradise and sees that he will not reach this level through his actions, Allah will afflict him with his health, honor, wealth, everything. Then Allah bestows him patience to undergo this affliction until he will finally reach the level He wanted him to be in Paradise.
He also said, "the people who were in well being in this life will wish on the Day of Judgment, when the people of tribulations are given the reward, that their skin would have been cut with blades." "No believer is afflicted with a thorn-prick or what is greater than that except that a higher degree is inscribed for him, or a sin removed from him."
We don't ask for afflictions but the moment we are afflicted, try to remember this hadith and know that the afflictions are only for our benefit and the reward is tremendous.
So, as you are walking towards Him, Allah is guiding you along the way until you reach your final destination, where He wants you to be. When He doesn't give you something you want in this world, know that He knew that it would have been bad for you to have it so He didn't give it to you. Don't despair.
An intelligent person would do on the first moment of his affliction what a foolish person would do at the end of his affliction. The wise person would be thankful to Allah the moment of his affliction. Like Prophet Yusuf, Allah grant him peace, never complained when he was thrown in the well, when he was separated from his beloved father, Allah grant them both peace, when he was slandered, when he was thrown in jail, because he knew Allah had something better for him. We should have this beautiful patience when calamities befall us.
Remember, Allah is the one who decides. He decides which river we have to swim from before we reach the ocean of success. And we just have to pass those alligators, snakes, crocodiles, .... to get to there. Tawfiq is from Allah.
May Allah grant us beautiful patience. Ameen. Please don't forget me in your night prayers. Jazakallahu khairan.
And Allah knows best.
Wassalaam
