WHEN PAIN CHOOSE ME

Sofiyya was only fifteen when she first learned how quickly life could unravel.

The day they wheeled her into the theatre for an appendix surgery, she thought the pain would finally end. The nurses smiled, her mother whispered prayers, and Sofiyya promised herself that tomorrow would be different, lighter, easier, pain-free.

But tomorrow did not bring relief. Instead, it brought a diagnosis heavier than her small chest could bear.

Her heartbeat once steady and innocent grew troubled, fighting against a body too young to understand what was happening. Tests turned into more tests, days turned into weeks, and the doctors' voices shifted from calm to urgent.
Then came the words that changed everything:

Rheumatic heart disease. Mitral stenosis. Sinus complications.

A trio of battles she never asked for.

Her mother tried not to break in front of her, hiding tears behind hospital curtains. The air smelled of disinfectant and prayers. Bills piled higher than breaths she could take. The surgery she needed was immediate, but the money was not.

Relatives nodded with sympathy but offered silence. Neighbors asked questions but held their pockets closed. Hope became a thin thread-too thin for a girl whose heart was failing faster than the world realized.

There were nights when Sofiyya could hear her own heartbeat struggle, like a faint drum losing rhythm. She wondered if God chose her for this pain, or if pain simply found her and refused to leave.

Yet even in the stillness, even in the fear, she held on.

Then, just when the world seemed deaf to her cries, when medicine could not move forward and faith was her only pulse-a door opened, quietly, unexpectedly. Help arrived not with noise, but with grace. What was impossible became possible, and what was breaking began to mend.

Sofiyya would later call it a miracle.

But in that moment, as dawn spilled weak sunlight into her room and her chest rose with fragile breaths, she simply whispered:

"Alhamdulillah."