بِسْــــــــــــــــــمِ اﷲِالرَّحْمَنِ اارَّحِيم
In the name of Allah Most Compassionate, Most Merciful
Usual thoughts over the past few days:
"Eeeks I cannots cannots cannots believe it's 5 days from now"
"Makan tak basah, mandi tak kenyang, tidur tak lelap, Raya pun tak senang.
A friend of mine once tweeted, and I quote "Ni baru results dunia, belum results di padang Mahsyar". Tertampar, terdiam sebentar.
And that same friend had also once tweeted, (okay kantoi stalk dia) "Bentang sejadah ready sujud syukur. Lepas tak lepas belakang cerita."
Too often in life, we make plans and we think that's the best. When something comes and ruins our plans we get frustrated, but we forget that Allah too has His plans for us.
"But they plan, and Allah plans. And Allah is the best of planners." Al-Quran - 8:30
In these moments do we learn the true meaning of tawakkal - to put one's trust in Allah. We trust that He truly knows what's best for us and He infinitely knows better than us. Trust that He will only give us what's best for us, and what's best for us might not be what we want.
Someone once taught me to say in my du'a: "Ya Allah, ease for me so and so, if that is the best for me, if it will lead me to You, and if and only if Your redha is with it" "Ya Allah, permudahkan bagiku urusan itu, sekiranya ia baik bagiku, sekiranya ia akan mendekatkan diriku padaMu dan sekiranya redhaMu bersamanya"
So when things don't go as we hoped and prayed it to, we need to remind ourselves of that du'a. Maybe He didn't give us so and so, because it is not the best for us. Maybe it will stray us from Him - turn us into arrogant, ungrateful people who think only our mere efforts lead us to those success. And maybe, He didn't grant us our wishes because His redha is not with it. What could possibly matter more than His redha on us?
After reciting that du'a, bear in mind that whatever that Allah gives us, would be the best for us. It would lead us closer to Him, it would draw us nearer to attaining His redha, inshaAllah, biiznillah. Matlamat hidup kita bukanlah untuk ke overseas dan bermegah-megahan dengan title 'budak oversea' itu, bukan hanya untuk mendapat segulung ijazah dan mendapat kerja yang bergaji lumayan untuk hidup dengan senang-lenang, dan bukan semata-mata untuk travel dan bermusafir di negara orang, (tak salah buat semua tu, even I'd like to do them myself, cuma that's not the main objective). Tujuan hidup sebenar kita ialah sebagai abid dan sebagai khalifah. Dan inshaAllah, wherever we are destined to be, di situlah tempat terbaik bagi kita untuk melaksanakan tujuan itu.
So whatever the results turn out to be on the 15th August (and on the 13th for those who sat for the Cambridge papers), all praises be to Allah, the Lords of the Worlds. Alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah. Sujud syukur padaMu ya Allah.
And I leave you with one of my favourite hadiths:
On the authority of Abdullah bin Abbas, who said : One day I was behind the prophet and he said to me:
"..Be mindful of Allah, you will find Him before you. Get to know Allah in prosperity and He will know you in adversity. Know that what has passed you by was not going to befall you; and that what has befallen you was not going to pass you by. And know that victory comes with patience, relief with affliction, and ease with hardship."
"...The pens have been lifted and the pages have dried"
[Hadith #19 of An-Nawawi's Forty Hadiths]
Footnote : I'm really mostly talking to myself in this post. These reminders are mostly to remind myself and to calm myself because my nerves are really acting up, closer to the hour. Segala yang baik dari Allah, yang kurang adalah khilaf diri saya sendiri (please don't hesitate to tegur and correct me)
Allahualam, Allah knows best.
