I tried to use the present tense wherever I could, but unfortunately, many times I would be too disheartened, or tired to write. I wish now that I didn’t lose any opportunity to pen my thoughts, but then it would have changed my entire experience. In so many ways, what a person writes does not reflect the changes they undergo within them.
I know this isn't the most vivid or best account I could write. Having worked for a year, my first priority was to go for Hajj as soon as I could. However, my plans wouldn't come together. Every door closed up on me and I locked myself up with depression. I couldn't understand what was happening in my life, and why I was facing nothing but rejection.
My parents couldn't see me suffer like that, and so my father, canceled all his important meetings, changed his investment plans, did whatever else he had to, and decided to, with Allah's Will, make my Hajj possible. We had our visas stamped some 4-5 days before the date of departure. It was truly an invitation from Allah, because such last minute plans are hardly entertained by travel agencies.
I was quite embarrassed before Allah (swt). How could I have not been patient through my ordeals in life? Perhaps I felt He had taken something away from me, but He replaced it with the best experience a Muslim could ever have, and that's how it was going to be.
A part of me was not completely prepared. I had a few exchanges, some words of advice, a fiqh course on SunniPath, and internet searches. I was going to be on my own. This was going to be my father's second Hajj, and mashallah, he had prepared well. I didn't want to discuss fiqh issues with him, because my own knowledge was recently acquired, and I was scared to confuse myself. Hence, despite being part of a group, I was on my own.
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