How things have changed… in mere months. Scrambling to fill a sudden lull in our lives. Violently interrupted by something insignificantly minuscule and unseen, yet with a staggering, insidious power to disrupt systems, stir panic, and surface government misdeeds. What an ugly sight unfurling in front of our eyes. All that we claim power over are now disintegrating into a rubble, piled. I hope we’re waking up. I hope we’re rising in humility. I hope we’re all pulling through in this quiet, collective suffering.
So while we are here in a standstill, let’s never forget that the event that’s unfolding also manifests one of the most comforting verses in the Quran – there is undeniable ease in hardship. There will be. Cast your fears aside and glean the relief in the heartache of this world. The chink in the curtains. Look. Look around you. The planet is healing. Families are healing. Humanity is healing. It’s going to get better.
But perhaps you hate a thing and it is good for you; and perhaps you love a thing and it is bad for you. And Allah knows, while you know not.
2:216
I hope we’ve drawn the right lessons from this global pandemic where every corner of the globe is hurting. Our optimism and compassion will carry on to level out every crevasse and cranny. I am already anticipating the moment when normalcy is restored and life goes on before the pandemic arose. For many, we’ve become so steeped in blessings that we were blinded from appreciating the ability to commute, the gift of having a job to go to, the ability to step outside without wearing a mask… that once this gift has been given to us again, we’d appreciate it with such acute awareness and deep appreciation. I await this outpour of gratitude. In child-like awe, almost.
This is our year of gratitude changer. Of solace seeking in the One who puts us here in the first place. Surely this is a test, a difficult test that will pass, as with everything else we know to be. Till we have learnt our lessons and till we are deemed to have passed this test, we’ll stand at the precipice with hope and prayers born. The gloaming will soon disappear – we know the skies are always at the darkest before the dawn.
The Book Jacket 