When you live in an area which is safe, and unaffected by the trials those in other lands suffer, you kinda start to take it for granted. Until something comes along knocks a dose of reality into and makes you truly want to repent to Allah for every single thing you’ve ever done. In this specific case, that something would be a 7-10 second earthquake that felt way longer than that. It’s something that shakes a person, literally, into realizing we’re not in control of anything, not even in the homes we live in. 
Alhamdulillah for everything we’ve been blessed with! <3
Prophet Musa (’alayhisalam) said: ‘O my Lord, the people say things about me which are not (i.e. not true)!‘ So Allah revealed to him: ‘O Musa, I did not make that (privilege) for Myself, so how can I make it the case for you?’
[Al-Adaab al-Shar’iyyah by Ibn Muflih (1/38)]
SubhanAllah, I just read that today, and I never thought about it in that light before. Who are we to feel that we won’t be lied against when lies are spoken about Allah and His beloved messengers and prophets (alayhi salaam)!
Sayyidina Abu Dharr al Ghifaari (Radiallahu Anhu) was a special sahabi. The strength of his imaan is something we can only wish to aim for. He lived through the hardest times the Muslims went through, but when the times of luxury came upon him, he shunned it and tried to urge his brothers to shun it as well. It led him to live a life of isolation, but a life that he was content with.
Thinking about his ways and his strictness got me thinking. If a person today was only quarter of the way of Abu Dharr (Radiallahu Anhu) how would we react to such a brother? We claim to love the Sahabah, yet it those who strive to imitate them are not favored. They are looked down as backwards, primitive, and extreme and they somehow are making Islam harder then it is. Not only that, even if they chose to live away from the community, people would go out of their way to pick on the person. If only we could just let people be themselves. If only we could just accept that we’re all human and have our differences…
In Sign Language class we watched a movie about a deaf child who wanted a cochlear implant. Her parents were flat out against it, then considered it, and ultimately decided against it. Their reason being: they want their child to be proud to be deaf and appreciate Deaf culture. That does make a certain amount of sense to me, they are a minority who are clearly discriminated against and they have every right to their culture and to keep sign language strong. Given the fact that a cochlear implant is not readily accessible for those from a lower income group, the already small Deaf community would become smaller. I even do see how invasive the cochlear implant is, an watching a tiny baby being operated on and being drilled in the head was freaky.
But then I think about it… And wonder, for a Muslim child who is deaf, not having a cochlear implant would remove so many amazing experiences. I cannot imagine not being able to listen to the Quran, go to the Haramain and not hear the adhaan and salaah live, and not even hear simple things like the rain pattering against the windows or hearing the silly, crazy noises my brother makes. 
All that makes me wonder, would having an cochlear implant for a child be so bad? 
Exactly one week ago I lost my lovely silver Motorola (and yes, I do miss it…true love never fades eh?) at college. In my foolish optimism I presumed whoever picked it up would drop it off at Lost and Found. Hah! As if.
On Friday my sweet big sis ordered a new phone for me (which is free with our family plan, yippy). It arrived yesterday, as I expected. But I kinda expected it would arrive early in the afternoon, and it arrived at night. And yes, the extra three hours did make a difference. Sheesh. 
But hey, the delivery man was really friendly, so I did feel all the more guilty about my impatience.
Anyways, my phone rocks mashaAllah. The screen is literally shiney, and when it’s in standby mode it’s like a mirror! I don’t have to carry a mirror with me anymore, not that I ever did much, but that’s the point. I always used to forget it, and sometimes I’d actually need it, so now it’s all good! It’s also got a 2 mega pixel camera, which is pretty good alhamdulillah. Now, I can random pictures when I want to! Oh, most important of all, the call quality is nice! Ignore the fact that I placed that detail last, it really is important of course. :p
So I happen to be a bit into the Windows Vista look, and decided I’d install a theme patcher so I could get a Vista theme. And it backfired. My computer ended up looking like Windows 98, and there was no option to even select the XP look! 
To add to that, our CD/DVD drive broke down on this computer, and although we managed to pull off reformatting before, it doesn’t seem that may be possible again unless we get a new drive, which we won’t bother doing for an almost four year old laptop. Anyways, I was sitting here going, “oh shoot, serves me right for thinking I was too smart and could do it on my own without my personal tech support team to help me!” Then I decided to go for system restore since I had a set restore point, and by golly I’m sooo relieved that worked. I guess I can survive without my tech support team. Not that I’m going to try that again…for a long time anyway. A little bit of panic and increased heart rate is good every once in a while.
Somebody was wanting to learn how to use Windows Movie Maker, and so I was going back and forth teaching over the phone. Now granted that I’m not the best teacher, and I’m fond of phone calls, I feel sorry anybody on the receiving end. Yet, after a quite a few rather annoying failures, there is the still quest on their part get it right. That rather impresses me, cuz I’m not really like that. I’m usually the type who gets things completely wrong and will get quickly discouraged to the point where my head starts hurting and I want to cry, and then I don’t want to see the project for a few days. I know, I know that’s tragic, and I might be getting better at it slightly I think. I hope.
I haven’t exactly figured this theme out, and the side bar looks a bit off to me. But hey, at least I can have my own custom banner and custom header, so I won’t diss WordPress this time. Plus I’ve cleaned up my blog list and put it on a page of it’s own. If I accidentally removed yours, and you actually still visit here, then let me know I’ll put it back. It’s quite funny actually, I was looking at my stats the other day, and apparently a few people were still visiting my blog. Or maybe that was just my sister. 
Anyways, inshaAllah more substance laters!
“To bear something displeasing with displeasure is called Tahallum (pretending to be tolerant). And to bear displeasure with pleasure is true Hilm (tolerance).”
[Hadhrat Maseehullah Khan Sahab (Rahimahullah)]
Undeniably, one of the hardest things to do is display patience and moreover smile through circumstances of pain and even anger. But therein lies the reward…
I’d love to get away from all the rude, annoying attitude and be alone living in here right now….
[Picture taken from flickr]
