Time is Life!

Time is Life!

The sense of value of time is relatively new to me. My life you can say, has never had any real downs per se from the time I can remember to the whole teenage years. My only "problems" were my occasional arguments with my mom or cousins or friends. Or may be having had to choose the dress that my mom loves over what I do for my cousin's wedding etc.. and I thought my life was miserable! All my life, I thought these were "problems", because, as I realize now, I never had any real ones. I didn't have any particular ambition or goal that I was keen on. I knew I would be married soon, happily married that is, and have lots of children and would live happily ever after. I didn't quite have any plans for my future nor did I ever envision my life past marriage. When I compare that me with the present me, I realize that I have changed, my life has changed.. a great deal! Now I am ambitious, to the extend that some of my friends say am "over ambitious", I have a goal, I have an aim, I have a plan, and I am passionate about them all...
Why have I changed? What has woken me up?
I can never have enough of reliving that beautiful journey...

While I was still in my early 20's, pertaining to the delivery of my 1st child, I suffered a medical condition. There is no one word for that condition. Its just a lot of symptoms and illnesses coming together all at the same time, like extreme fatigue, excruciating pain all over the muscles and bones, short term memory loss, which is termed as brain fog, unexplained weight gain, insomnia, depression,anxiety and the list goes on. The worst of all these symptoms was the extreme fatigue.The term "fatigue" doesn't do it any justice.When this affects me, every single muscle in my body shuts down and I become unable to even open my eyelids. But I'm not asleep, am wide awake, I know and hear everything thats happening around me but I cannot respond. Its more like a temporarily paralyzed state. And my new born would be just beside me crying either for milk, or because of a soiled diaper, and I would just have to lay there helpless. Fighting and struggling within myself just to hold her close to me, to pacify her, to attend to her, but to no avail. This would put me into further extreme frustration, anger and disappointment. And all this make my condition worse. It would seem like a cycle from which I have no escape. For the 1st time in my life, I started pondering over my life, my time, my purpose, my aims and goals. I understood life must have much more to it than to just live it along the flow. I craved for a normal life, a healthy one, so that I could make it meaningful. So that I could bring out something useful out of it, for me and for others. I craved for a normal life so that I could bring up my child with utmost care and nurture needed to make her one of the best slaves of Allah. For the 1st time in my life, I began planning. I began to draw out and define what I would like to make out of my life had I been given a normal life once more. The more I planned and the more I thought and pondered over it, the greedier I became. I craved and yearned for life, health and time. For quite sometime the doctors had a hard time diagnosing my condition. And some of them even said its in my mind. It seemed like people around me started to believe it. But I knew it wasn't in my mind. Were it in my mind, the intense craving I had for life would have given me wings long back. But it wasn't in my mind, it was real and Allah was the ONLY witness to it. There were times when I was devastated but I never lost hope and trust in Him - He who knows everything, He with Whom there is cure and remedy for everything, He who is the Richest, He who is the Most Generous, He who is able to do all things...
As days passed by my relationship with him began to grow better and closer as I realized it was ONLY Him who could actually understand me and set me free. Finally one day He answered my dua, and led me to stumble upon an article which mentioned all the illnesses and symptoms that I was going through. A detailed article about this condition by WebMD where they have also mentioned that Doctors tend to say "its in the mind" since its hard for them to diagnose and recognize the condition.I jumped up and down as though I had got a treasure. I printed this out and took it to the doctor. He then began treating me in its light. And I started getting better by Allah's will. However, this condition could not be cured completely, it could only be controlled. And that required me to have an organized life, pre plan my days if I had to get my routine things done before I'd fall sick again. In order to not let anything suffer, I had to prepare myself well in advance. Once again, for the very 1st time in my life, I began to plan my each day and organize my life completely. It started to feel beautiful, much more than it used to be before I had my illness. I was given a second chance. That was a priceless gift in and of itself. I would still fall sick every now and then, but I didin't care anymore, my life was beautiful. I had learned many priceless lessons. I was becoming productive in contrast to what I used to be when I had good health. And then one day I was in my sajdah during qiyam and I said something to Allah which very spontaneously escaped my lips, something I hadn't imagined I would say. I said "Thank You Allah for the trial you gave me! It has made me a better person!"

Through this whole process, He taught me to have tawakkul in Him, He taught me to never lose hope in Him, He taught me the value of health, the value of time,
the value of life itself. He taught me to be organized. He taught me to have dreams and goals in my life, taught me to be passionate about them... and in all this He taught me about His uncompromising Love, His compassion for me because of which He chose to give me a second chance to make me a better person... because of which He did not forsake me when He could have a long time back...

Radheethu billahi Rabba - I'm pleased (rather ecstatic) with Allah as my Lord...  The Loving, The Merciful...