Ice Cubes and Candles

By Zabrina A. Bakar

My dearest friend called me yesterday. She was having a bad day, you know, the type that qualifies for ‘rock-bottom, and then me’ kind of day.

As she was ‘passionately’ describing her ‘memorable moments’ of the day, it was clear that her emotions were running high and her thoughts were all cluttered, disorganized and jumbled up. She wished for things that she had never asked to happen to anyone, to happen to the person that had caused her so much distressed.

I quickly reminded her of the verse of Allaah the Most Loving who said in His Holy Book that guides human souls,

Verily, those who are Al-Muttaqoon (the pious – see V.2:2), when an evil thought comes to them from Shaitan (Satan), they remember (Allah), and (indeed) they then see (aright) (A’raf 7: 201)

She made me think that day.

My friend is a lovely person but under a severely and extremely stressful circumstance, her thoughts wandered to a territory she had never crossed before.

I realized here that Allaah has made it clear that our minds could ‘stroll’ around if we do not control it. Of course if it strolled towards goodness, alhamdulillaah, right?

But what if it wandered towards something bad?

For example, when we got upset with someone, or injustice was done to us, or we found that someone had betrayed us, or we are angered, what were our thoughts at that time?

What were the things that crossed our minds? What were the words at the tip of our tongues? Was there an urge of retaliation? How about revenge? Perhaps intend to pay back? Maybe even a quick prayer of condemnation for the other person?

Well, perhaps some of our thoughts do not really qualify as evil thoughts but they sure do not qualify as good ones either, you agree?

And mind you, those thoughts are definitely whispered and ‘specially delivered’ to our mind courtesy from His enemy.

So, what did Allaah want us to do then?

Remember Him…and then only we could see what is right, inshaAllaah…

With that, I quickly reminded myself and my dearest friend of the words of our Creator, Allaah the Greatest, the Most Loving, the Best Planner with this verse,

Say: “nothing will happen to us except what Allah has decreed for us: He is our protector”: and on Allah let the Believers put their trust (At-Taubah 9:51)

Allaah has said that nothing will happen to us except with His Permission. Therefore, if we continuously be upset and failed to exercise patience, aren’t we sort of like showing our anger, dissatisfaction, frustration and irritation towards Allaah too?

Don’t you think this is what the satan wanted from us in the first place? To make us unhappy, angry and displeased with Allaah’s Plans, the One Who gave us life? Do we want to give the enemy of Allaah victory because we aren’t able to control our discontent over the small ‘mishaps’ we faced daily? Do we really want to see them doing the happy dance while we are fuming with anger? Do we want to allow them to use us as prove to Allaah of the unworthiness of His Creation- the human being? Do we?

Astaghfirullaah…

Billy Graham once said,

Hot heads and cold hearts never solved anything

So, I have decided to pour unto my head some ice-cube water to cease the heat and to light some candlelight in my heart to warm it up, inshaAllaah.

What about you my friends? Care to stock some ice-cubes and candle for future use?

Think about it…

Copyright © Sis Zabrina 2008

Sis Zabrina also known as Zabrina A. Bakar, is a Life Storyteller, motivational writer and speaker; and author of Islamic motivational book Life is an Open Secret www.lifeopensecret.com which contains 18 inspirational stories from ordinary life experiences. She passionately writes about life daily happenings, viewed and analyzed from unique perspective, blended with the Qur’anic verses and Hadeeth of the Prophet SAW for solutions to illustrate the easiness, simplicity, relevancy and completeness of Islam to today’s world. Her works are published in various countries across the Muslim world. She maintains an active blog at www.wisdomthruwords.blogspot.com.