Wednesday 16 January 2008

Finding Purpose

I was speaking with my best friend about how the everyday demands of life can get you down and finding purpose in our lives.

Every one us of has issues, suffers from stress and can get depressed (I had four months of the baby blues after I had Gorgeous). We all go through times when we lose sight of what the point of it all is. That's what makes us human and that's what makes us unique. It’s also a result of the demands and expectations of modern life. That's what has led me to search manically for answers on the internet, in self-help books, in other people, in myself and in my faith, the only thing that's has helped me is looking inwards and not at other people and also going back to my faith: why are we here? What is our purpose? Once we start to act according to our purpose, I think maybe we can get some relief.

Its something that has been bugging me on and off for the last two or three years - we're supposed to be humble, but we want to be great, how can we ever be good enough Muslims when even the Sahabah (Companions of the Prophet) used to cry over their past sins (what chance have we got?). We want a good life and beautiful things but don't feel we deserve them and also that we are sinful for desiring them rather than what is in the hereafter. It’s enough to make you go crazy with guilt and anxiety.

I started to come to some kind of understanding about this recently. If we were so unworthy, why did Allah pick us out to give us his message out of over 6 billion people in this world. If he loves us so intensely why can’t we love ourselves? He loves us and sees something good in us, he thinks us fit to do his work, he thinks us fit to be in his beloved's (SAWW) Ummah ...maybe we need to start giving ourselves a break and let him do his work through us and let ourselves fill up with his love.

Those thoughts are just helping me a bit, you get tired and exhausted of the guilt and confusion after a while.

"Verily with every difficulty there is relief." Al-Quran (Nashrah 6 - 7)

3 comments:

  1. I believe these to be important issues which is more prominent in your 20s as this is when one tries to discover 'who they are'. Inshallah we will all find peace through worship and by believing in Allah's goodwill we can overcome anything.

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  2. Aslamu alakum sister
    jazakAllahu khyrun for coming by my blog and your kind comments , its dd1 who does the techie stuff for me mashaAllah. I see you have Asian connections , Iam a British Asian revert muslimah ex-pat in Algeria (dh is Algerian), i made hijrah 2.5 yrs ago alhamduillah, East London roots!!!

    Now i understand where you are coming from on this one, sometimes we can easily get so caught up in duniyyah and then feel guilt for the things we have not done deenwise, Allah Al Must'aan. Its good that we feel the guilt as its a sign of faith and fearing Allah. Remember hell fire is surrounded by ease and the jannah is surrounded by hardships, Allah test those that He loves and alhamduillah he choose you and me to be His servents. We can only do our best as humans and remeber all we do to be for the sake of Allah reward is what we are striving for inshaAllah, also ask Allah in your duas for help in setting your affairs right , to ease the stress and depression, dikhr and quran are a great shifa for depression, remember your unseen ememy shatan and he will be there trying to weaken you every step of the way! May allah up lift our hearts and increase our ilm and emman and bless us with hikmah ameen.

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  3. As'salamu alaykum sister-

    Beautiful post, it is heartfelt and as subjective as one can get. I admire your honesty & ability to write about something so personal, in such a way, that it is interesting for others!

    There are days where I just ask myself... "why?"

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