Reflection 66 – The Thin Line I’m Trying To Walk

For those very close to me, they know for a fact that I am not that type of person who easily opens up and spills out what is going on inside. Even my own parents got to know stuff they never knew about me before writing my reflections . But writing from behind a screen gives one a bit of a leeway to share things I normally won’t. But I believe it is important for me to constantly remind myself of WHY I am doing what I am doing, especially that lots of my reflections deal with very intimate details about myself and what I go through on a daily basis. I believe there are three main points in this regard. Two things that I hope don’t apply to me, and a third one that I hope to be my sincere intention behind all of this.
It’s quite common for those who endure tough and everlasting tests to complain about Allah; the main question being Why Me? What did I do wrong to have to go through all of this? All these questions contain an element of complaining to people about Allah and questioning the wisdom behind his acts. They all in turn hit hard in the core of our beliefs and mess up the foundations of accepting Allah’s decrees in specific those that run contrary to our personal desires. So, my hope by sharing these intimate details and the pain I go through is NOT to complain about Allah or show any signs of unacceptance.
At the other extreme, is that one shares such things to gain people‘s praise and admiration. The fact is we all LOVE being praised and feel satisfied when people like what we have to say. And I am no different of course . On the one hand, there is nothing wrong with feeling happy about what people have to say. However, the main thing is that this should not be the REASON driving us to do what we do. The tricky part about this is that one’s intention could be sincere at the beginning, but then gets messed up once one reads how others praise him and starts to feel good about himself. Once again, I hope I don’t get drifted this way either.
Rather, the main purpose behind my reflections (and I hope I am sincere in that) is to convey a true message of appreciation and gratitude towards the infinite blessings we are all showered with but fail to appreciate because we are usually too busy with our lives. Our human nature in general makes us less appreciative of any blessing when we get used to it. We only really appreciate it once we lose it. Elhamdulellah I have lost much of what I took for granted throughout most of my life, but never fully appreciated. And I feel it‘s my role now to appreciate and be grateful for what I still have as well as make others aware and appreciative of the blessings they take for granted!