Life isn’t all that exciting for me
I go to work, go shopping, go home
And aside from babysitting Fatima occasionally,
I don't really have much of a social life
Kareem from the Masjid always asks me to come to volunteer for stuff
And I usually back out
But this time I decided I would spend the weekend
with him and the rest of the guys on the camping trip
Or at least that’s what I thought I’d be doing
I am not the most responsible guy in the world
I flake on many of my obligations,
and tend to be last minute about everything
I prayed occasionally,
but at times got halfway through my Wudu’
before deciding something else was more important than the prayer
So I decided that I'd hurry
and catch the guys before they left
But Allah had a different plan
And that plan
included me being unable to open the door
I'd opened a million times before
So I figured I’d call Kareem
and let him know this time I was not flaking on anything
I was just stuck in the bathroom
Makes perfect sense right?!
And you say we have the best coverage in America!
We often think we have got it all figured out
And that our contingency plans are too many for us
to really get stuck in anything
Someone or something
is always going to be there to bail you out
It’s only a matter of time
But what happens when all that is taken away from you?
And both of people and possessions
you thought you could rely on
start to fail you?
At some point,
you just want anybody to hear you
And the movements in the hallway
create this sense of hope
that someone is going to come to get you
You can hear them and you know they can hear you
But then the sounds of the footsteps fade away
And you are left dejected,
wondering if another person might pass by and hear your cries
But as you wait
you might as well entertain yourself as best as you can
It is pretty pathetic, I know,
but sometimes imaginary friends are easier to deal with
And can actually really keep you company
*Imaginary crowd applauding and cheering*
And they get boring too
and just like with any day of work
You come home;
you go through your motions,
and lights out
That wasn’t exactly what I had in my mind
And before I knew it,
my bathroom started to seem more like a grave
The prophet peace be upon him said that
we should frequently remember death
And called it the destroyer of all pleasures
And though this might’ve been an odd place to do so
I probably thought of it more in those few moments
than I had over the last year
It’s amazing that it took getting stuck in a bathroom
to start thinking about what it would be like to be alone in the grave
But I guess that is the point
Expect the unpredictable at any time,
and death is the ultimate unpredictable
It was dark,
cold,
and lonely
And suddenly every little sound
was as loud as a jackhammer
But then I woke up to a nightmare
that the fire that followed the grave was now to consume me
And that I could only hold off my inevitable fate for so long,
because no one was going to hear or see me suffocate or burn
But Allah chose to spare me
The smoke alarm was in another unit
But the alarm I needed to hear was internal
So I did what I hadn’t done for a long time,
and thought I had no time for
No, it was not the best of places to start,
but I had no choice,
and surely my Lord is understanding and forgiving
AlHamdu-llillah
Suddenly there was clarity
and an overwhelming sense
that everything was going to be okay
not because any person would hear me
but the only who needed to hear me, just did
The sounds started to come back
this time they sounded real
And ironically,
it turned out to be the one guy I had actually done something nice for this year
John told me to look down and try turning the lever in the opposite direction
I really didn’t get what he said till I actually tried it
And just like that
the turner of hearts turned my heart towards him
And as my Lord promised,
everything was okay,
everything was okay
And though I thought I was alone throughout this entire ordeal,
Allah was with me the entire time
So Allah tells us in the Quran "that when you are conscious of Allah; Allah will make a way out for you"
But the thing is that at sometimes Allah is going to delay that way out
so he can give you some perspective
because you see, if Zeyara would have went on that trip,
he would have had weekend of fun
But now he has a lifetime of perspective,
and that’s why the prophet peace be upon him,
he said that: when Allah sends these tests to us he called them hindrances
so Allah would take a little bit of your health ,
so that you can recognize the blessing of your health
He will take a little bit of your wealth, so that you can recognize the blessing of your wealth
He will take a little bit of your time, so that you can recognize the blessing of your time
So all of these things are to put things back in perspective,
so that we don’t become ungrateful,
so that we don’t lose sight of the purpose in life
So that we keep our focus on Allah
and that is what the prophet peace be upon him said,
that the most truthful line of poetry ever spoken was
‘that everything besides Allah is disposable’
because if you lose anything else in life,
then you can replenish it with something ,you can replace it with something
but if you lose Allah, you lose everything including yourself.
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