My Precious

Over one a half years ago, I felt like I lost everything. I lost a man that I planned to marry, I was sad not because of he was dead, but because the timing, it was so close to the date and I felt like my dreams was vanished (well, we are woman, a bit dramatic). And friends asking how I feel over and over didn’t make me better. A month after, a huge earthquake hit my city, I lost my business. We got no electricity and water. I have to do the laundry  down to the hard flowing river, and take the clothes back up. And my visible skin (face and hands) got so dark, I felt like a zebra. We slept literally outside the house on a mat because earthquake still came to shock us, and to see half parts of the city were destroyed, we didn’t want to be in the house for too long before the contractors said it was safe. So, yes, I felt like I lost everything. I didn’t have money on my own, beauty, comfort, and exact future plan, also if it can be said ‘love’, I lost a loved one too.

Interesting to remember how I didn’t cry much, pretending to be so stupidly strong and act like I could handle everything. More interesting is at that time, I felt like I lost everything so it was a perfect time for me to really practice the theory “happiness is a choice”, “sadness is merely a concept”. Feeling that I have another thing to fight for, my future and my sanity. Everybody was worried about me, even I heard my mother cried to my father, “I’m afraid Ria will go crazy, this is too hard for her”, and listening to my father’s answer really lift up my self esteem, “I raised her to be strong, she is not a weak woman“. There’s nothing we have is truly ours 😀 I learned it the hard way. But alhamdulillah, at least I still learned something 🙂 Allah has been too kind.

That’s why I am so attached to this lecture, the lesson that I learned from it just beyond amazing. Please do watch,

I quote from this lecture,
The statement of Umar bin Khattab r.a, when were tested we were grateful for 3 things,
1. This trial wasn’t in our deen.
2. This trial is not as great as it could have been
3. that Allah subhana wa taala allowed us to be patient in that trial.

In my place, there is a place where there in un-exposed war between two major religions in our country. Not everybody knows it, but we do. It is hard to be a muslim there, I don’t have to explain, I’m sure you know about Palestine, that’s how it looks like. I don’t think my iman is strong enough if I was to be faced with choices to defend my life or defend my religion, astaghfirullah. And that time, I kept reminding myself, this is not that hard, I can get through this.
Few days after the earthquake, we came to know that there was a man, he had 4 children and all of them died. He only found 2 of their bodies. It makes me sad, to know what happened to him, he is now in mental hospital and I am grateful that what happened to me was not that hard. May Allah make his wife strong and grant him with recovery.
It was hard, but I am grateful that I didn’t put myself into traps that will make everything worse. I am grateful that my family was stronger during that time and really being supportive to each other. Allah subhana wa taala had made it easy for me to be strong, stronger than everybody thought I could be.

This morning, I was reminded by the lecture again. A facebook page shared this story.

Al-Hasan ibn Arafah narrated, “I visited Imâm Ahmad ibn Hanbal after he was whipped and tortured. I said to him, “O Abu Abdillâh, you have reached the station of the Prophets!” He said, “Keep quiet. Verily, I saw nothing more than people selling their Dîn. And I saw scholars that were with me sell their Faith.
So I said to myself, ‘Who am I, what am I. What am I going to say to Allâh tomorrow when I stand in front of Him and He asks me, “Did you sell your Dîn like the others did?” So I looked at the whip and the sword and chose them.

And I said, “If I die I shall return to Allâh and say: ‘I was told to say that one of Your Characteristics was something created but I did not.’ After that, it will be up to Him – either to punish me or forgive me.”

Al-Hasan ibn Arafah then asked, “Did you feel pain when they whipped you?” He said “Yes, I felt the pain up to 20 lashes then I lost all feeling (They whipped him over eighty times). After it was over I felt no pain and that day I prayed Dhuhr standing.”

[In fact he prayed as the blood soiled his clothes.]

Al-Hasan ibn Arafah started weeping when he heard what had happened. Imâm Ahmad questioned him, “Why are you crying? I did not lose my Îman. After that why should I care if I lose my life.”

Goosebumps and waterworks… This is very inspiring ♥

Alhamdulillah wa syukur bini’matillah, I do not lose my iman. May Allah subhana wa taala make it easy for us not to have deep attachment to this world,not to love this world too much because real life is later in Hereafter.

Make dua for me people! Much love! ♥