asma halai's blog

A difficult week, that’s what I recently went through. There were multiple moments where I couldn’t see light at the end of the tunnel and felt as though I didn’t know what to do next. I felt restricted, like I was running against a giant rubber band pulling me back, as I kept running, harder and faster. My trust fell, completely and undeniably. And then I truly realized something. Something I often forget.

I’ve done this before, I’ve fallen and felt like I was being held down. I’ve fallen many, many times.

But I know how to get up. And even if the first couple times I don’t get all the way up, I’m still closer to being upright if I try.

So that’s what I did, I tried. Even when every fibre of my being was telling my to give up. I tried. Sometimes, it felt like “I”, the concept of “myself”, wasn’t even doing it. It felt like a divine being was softly whispering to me.

“You can do it”

The voice came to me all throughout the day, through my parents, my sister, books, and the wind around me.

A beautiful creation of Allah is the moon. It’s brilliance, its softness and its glimmer. Seen overtly on a clear night, or subtly during a cloudy overcast. I love the moon. And then I realized something very important, the Moon doesn’t try to be the Sun. Not because it thinks the Sun is “too good” or because it’s insecure of the greatness of the Sun. But because the Moon is so special on its own. The Moon is the Moon because that’s exactly what it needs to be. It doesn’t need to be anything else, it doesn’t need to try. It just needs to Be, and then little wonderers like me stare at it in awe. The Moon shows up every day, because it’s confident. It knows that regardless if people look at it or ignore it, it’s still so important. It knows what it needs to do and it trusts, it trusts its Creator, and Allah SWT mirrors the belief of the Moon right back onto it. Allah guides the Moon, He allows it to Be and, so it is. There is always light at the end of the tunnel, and this week I reflected a lot on the moon. Because in the darkness of the night, the Moon kept shining through and reminding me that I too am a moon. I think the Moon has probably never even thought of being the Sun.