1. The Hidden Blessings of Illness and Hardship

1.
I'm glad and grateful that I am ill right now,and that times are hard.
Does that sound crazy?
Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) reported that the Messenger of
Allah(pbuh) said, "For any adversity a Muslim suffers, Allah erases
someof his sins, even though it may be no more than athorn pricking
him." (Related by Al-Bukhari).
Another version of this Hadith is also related by Al-Bukhari on the
authorityof two of the Prophet's (pbuh) companions, namely, Abu Saeed
Al-Khudri and Abu Hurairahwho quote him as saying: "Whatever befalls a
Muslim of exhaustion, illness, worry, grief, nuisance or trouble,
eventhough it may be no more than a prick of a thorn, earns him
forgiveness by Allah of some of his sins."
My father recently suffered a fall and broke his leg badly, and is now
in a rehab center. In my personal life, two moves and one divorce in
the last five years have made it hard to retain friendships, and I
find myself feeling isolated. I've been through some painful personal
experiences. And these are hard times economically aswell. So there's
a lot of stress in the household.
I do my best to love my daughter more than ever, to play with her, hug
and kiss her, and always remind her of Allah's barakah. I try to make
her world full of happiness, learning, and talks about Allah. I try to
never let her see me sweat, as they say. But once she's sound asleep
in bed, I feel the weight of responsibility on my shoulders like a
sack of stones.
So if by patiently enduring this illness and these hard times in
general, I will earnAllah's forgiveness for my sins, and maybe will be
blessed in ways that I do not see, then I am grateful.
One more hadith: Jabir ibn Abdullah narrated that Allah's Messenger
salallahu alayhi wasallam said, "On the Day of Resurrection, when
people who have suffered affliction are given their reward, thosewho
are healthy will wish their skins had beencut to pieces with scissors
when they were in the world." (Al-Tirmidhi,1570)
In other words, when people see how much reward is given to those who
suffered in life, they will wish that they had suffered terribly, in
the worst possible ways, so that it might become a cause of
forgiveness for them in the Hereafter.
SubhanAllah, whatever pain we suffer in this life is not in vain. It
is not wasted. We may cry and wince and groan over small pains, but
Allah sees our suffering and will compensate us more than we can
imagine, as long as we are patient and keep faith in Him. Allah the
Most High has a plan for us, and He is the best of planners. We must
have faith in Him and His plan for us.
Seeing the Good
Also, let us not be blind to the good things that have happened. I
think this is very important. All too often we get caught up in our
losses and dismiss some of Allah's quiet gifts and blessings that have
budded and opened up when we were hardly looking.
For example, I have alwaysthought of myself as a writer at heart and
have been happiest when I was pursuing that calling. WhenI was single
I was obsessive about it. Even after a long day at work I would sit
down in front of the computer in my little San Francisco loft, and
write. After I got married and the responsibilities of family life
fell on my shoulders I neglected my writing. Lately, however, I find
myself writing daily and expressing ideas that have been growing in my
heart for decades. The words flow as if they have been bottled under
pressure, waiting for release. What a blessing!
In my teens I studied martial arts for some years.Life carried me in
different directions and I stopped practicing but I still thought of
myself as a martial artist, and kept meaning to get back into it.
Finally in my late thirtiesI realized that my dream was passing me by.
I got back into it and made a do-or-die commitment. Since then, with
the moves from the Bay Area to Panama City to El Valle to Fresno, it's
been a struggle to find teachers and training partners, but I have
persisted, in some cases creating my own training group out of
scratch. For the last year and a half, partly as a way of dealing with
loneliness and stress, I plunged myself into an intensive study of the
arts.
Now I suddenly find myselfentering this phase when my understanding of
the arts is expanding like a tidal wave. I seem to have moved beyond
rote memorization of techniques and I am able to spontaneously create
combinations and visualizenew possibilities. My balance is solid, my
form is good. Basically, I have grasped the underlying principles of
the arts and have moved beyond the 1-2-3 stage. I can finally call
myself a martial artist.
:->

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