Qur'anic Reflections

With love and desperation

Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu!

May the choicest blessings of Allah be upon you all.

I'm sorry this is not a reflection and I'm sorry that there has been no reflection since Ramadan.  Life has a funny way of reminding you how unpredictable and messy it can get. But Alhamdulillah, as Muslims we must always be prepared for what is to come.

I write today for selfish reasons, perhaps also out of desperation. 

When you love something too much, it does that to you.

But it's a beautiful thing to love something. To love something so much it scoops the life out of you. To love something even when it breaks you, even when it squeezes the sweat and bones, takes away your sleep and hands you painful dreams instead.

For as long as I can remember, I have only loved a few things. Allah's deen, medicine, poetry and chocolate. Those are all the things that I've lived for, and will in sha Allah.

My love for medicine has always been a tough one, as everyone who has been here will testify. It is not an easy job to be a doctor, and no it does not put me on some high moral ground or pedestal. Funnily enough, it does the quite opposite.

It humbles me. It humbles me to learn about the fantastic designs of the body, it humbles me to know how life just goes on non-stop if you just let it, it humbles me to lose a life in my hands and it is on those days that I know, I was born to be here.

To be a doctor is to know how unpredictable life is. It is to expect the best but to prepare for the worst. It is to do your best, and leave the rest to Allah.

For when I am ill, it is He who cures me.

I am not bragging when I say that I have put all my life into this. Like so many others, I have spent my life in books, finding solace in words rather than people, spending nights with my authors than friends, and I don't know if what I've done is right.

I don't know if it's okay to gift yourself amnesia for blissful memories to make space for dates and facts. I don't know if it's okay to bury all the happiness and work for something you love. I don't know if it's okay to choose books over people.

I really don't.

I don't claim to know if what I've done is the better way to live life. It maybe. It may not be either.

All I know is that every moment I have ever skipped, every party that I have ever  given a miss, every second of sleep that I've missed, all build up to this point in my life.

To the exam I have this Sunday. It is my Postgraduate entrance exam (um yes I'm that old) that basically decides what branch of medicine I'll be doing for the rest of my life so yeah I'm pretty nervous and on the verge of a breakdown aaaaaaaah.

That's where you guys come in, can y'all please do this sister a favour and pray for her?

I desperately need all the duas I can get.

So I request you all sincerely, if I have ever ever ever made you happy, or you took something nice from it, or if it made your day better or even if it didn't, please remember me in your prayers.

Pray to Allah that I get the seat that I desire. Pray to Allah that everyone writing the exam give it their best shot.  Pray that with each question that I answer, my confidence builds up, pray that He grants me the vision to guess the answers right if I need to. Pray that I don't make any silly mistakes.

Pray that I give it my fullest.

I know I may not be the best prepared or the most hardworking, but I do know that my Lord is Allah who can make anything possible.

I believe in miracles because I believe in a Lord that made 313 people win over a 1000 more with much more ammunition. I believe in the Lord that gave a virgin a son, a childless old woman a child and the Lord that created you and I.

There is nothing His treasures do not contain. He is so self sufficient that giving doesn't lessen any of His bounties.

I believe in a Lord who told me He's near, that a sinning, feeble, weak of a person could have a voice loud enough to be heard near Him, at His Arsh.

And because I believe in Him, I will go in with confidence, with nothing but my hardwork, faith and the duas that my loved ones will make for me.

I hope you all will join in and increase your dua for me. My exam is tomorrow between 9:30 am and 1 : 00 pm (Indian time), if you find yourself recalling all this, please take a quick second to pray for me.

With love,
Always,
Ahlam