Bismillah

As Salaamu alaikum,

I recently travelled far from home to help my family welcome a new member. A baby girl whom I will call Dewdrop. I relaxed, cooked, loved, cleaned, and cared for people I love dearly. Then I went home and returned to real life.  

There have not been many times in my life where I have been removed from my environment then returned to it in such a way that I get to assess what impact that environment has on me. And I have to say it has been an eye opening moment. Because I have been blessed to realize that the problem is me. I have accustomed myself to feeling overwhelmed and now all I have to do is walk into the door to feel it.

When I returned home the house was clean and the children well looked after. And that said it all. I could no longer blame my difficulty in finding consistent time to spend with quran on my house or my loud kids. Our minds have to heal just as much as our bodies and hearts when we have gone through difficulty. 

It is not enough to endure but we must push past that level and begin to thrive once again. For me the ability to thrive consists of consistently memorizing and revising Quran. Everything that distracts from that is simply not worth my time and not worth having in my heart or my home. 

Choose Allah. Choose Quran

 Bismillah 

Assalaamu Alaikum,

I have dreams. I have things I believe in and hold dear. And I have space in my heart only to love. I don’t have space for grieving what is lost when Allah has given me so much. 

After my first child was born I struggled in my relationship with Allah. The slow steady beat down of unfinishable, toilsome, work chipped away every bit of energy I had. 

And when there was nothing left I would collapse and just hope and pray for someone to help me. Then Allah removed my support system and the help I hadn’t been grateful enough for was gone. And there really was no one there to aid me… Or so I thought. 

Turns out when I stopped looking to others for help Allah gave me the energy to help myself. Because when we think about it and remember the reality, we should know that it is Allah who is orchestrating all of this existence anyway. All we are charged with is choice. So I will choose what is most loved by my Lord. 

 Bismillah

ASsalaamu alaikum,

I woke up this morning to the sound of a small body and small feet pitter pattering around the kitchen. There was a knock at my door. A voice said something that sounded like “blah blah blah blah blah blah?” I tried to move but my limbs were heavy with exhaustion. “Quran, Quran,” I thought to myself. “I must read my Quran.” Slowly I moved. Slowly I turned. The summer cold we all caught was still rattling in my head. 

I look at the time, five o’clock. It’s still dark out. Alhamdulillah I haven’t missed fajr, but my time for Quran is fast fading. I move as if in a trance. I am sleepwalking. Brush… shower… dress… pray… feed the babies… wake the kids… pray with the kids… clean the kitchen...  Meanwhile a silent alarm is going off in my mind. Time is running out. Quran, Quran, QURAN! I sit. I pick up my musfah, a baby with a glob of yellow snot running down here face and into her mouth appears before me. I put the mushaf down. Look after her, put the quiche in the oven. I sit again and reach for my mushaf. Oh no! I forgot to cancel the kids quran class. They have sore throats. I log into WhatsApp and cancel class. I get distracted typing this message. Lol. The baby comes back to lay on my chest.  Alhamdulillah her fever just broke. I remember how frightened I was when I felt her this morning and all of her skin was hot. Alhamdulillah im so relieved she’s cooled down some. I sit, reach for the mushaf. There is a warm baby on my chest. 

A’oothoo beellaahi…

Bismillah hir-Rahmaanir-Raheem… 

Oh Allah you are my strength. Hold me up!

 Bismillah

Assalaamu alaikum,

I talk to myself. I am my own personal motivational coach. Just last week i said to myself, “Blackseed, you have to finish Surah BAqara this week! You been slacking. Are you a slacker?”

And of course I had to respond, “ No! I AM NOT A SLACKER!” Then a whole week went by and I didnt complete a single page of Quran… Because I had Covid. It felt pretty much like a mild flu. But it had been a long time since my energy was so thoroughly drained the way Covid drained me. But alhamdulillah I am recovering as is Master Yoda and the young longs. I still have a lingering dull headache humming in my ears. But there is something else humming there too.

I had forgotten just how much I rely on my body to do what i ask of it. I had forgotten just how much work it takes to run a household and that the reason i cannot always accomplish the goals i set is because i may have to hold my 11 year old whose head hurts so much all she can do is cry and moan while we wait the necessary hours between doses of Tylenol and IBUPROFEN. Alhamdulillah for the strength to carry on. To rise up and try again. Then to fail miserably and try again. Then try again.

Until one day, this morning actually, i got up and memorized 4 pages of Quran. And not because of anything special within me, but because of Allah. Because Allah truly can do anything. What is required is that we show up. And keep showing up, and never give up until the job is done. 

 Bismillah

It’s strange to be here again. I just completed juz 2. Baqara is finished in 8 pages. 1 week inshaAllah. The first time around it was amazing. This time I’m getting choked up. I can feel the relief coming. But it’s not arrived yet. What is the relief? Its the exhale. Its the one breath i take between contractions. Its the moment i give myself to reset… then keep going. 

Its time to keep going. Push through the hard moments. Plow through the pain. Concentrate through the boredom. Discipline is the ability to do the same thing over and over regardless of how you feel. Because what you are doing is necessary. Bismillah full speed ahead.

Bismillah

As Salaamu alaikum

Sunday Ramadan 1st 1443.

It is Ramadan. The month of mercy has come. And the time has come for me to recommit to completing my memorization of Quran. 15 Years ago I attempted it, seriously, for the first time. But the demands of having small children to care for and a full time life at first slowed my progress then stopped it completely after completing 5 juz. That was over 8 years ago now. And I’ve been struggling to get back to it ever since, but the idea of completely starting over stopped me for a long time.

As I struggled to find time for Quran, I had to reevaluate every aspect of my life until I came to the realization that the only one stopping me from memorizing the book of Allah is me. Once I accepted that, I was able to slowly come back to Quran. I started by reading a page a day after fajr. One page became two pages. Two pages became four pages. And I slowly and steadily build my stamina for Quran. 

It took 3 years of slow steady progress but this Ramadan in the first week I memorized 1 juz in one week. I had never done anything like that before and it blew me away. Bare in mind I was very familiar with it but many of us are very familiar with the first several pages of Quran. The question is do we want to memorize it badly enough to go the extra mile that it takes to get it done. And for me, for the first time in a long time, my answer is YES.