نِّعْمَةً مِّنْ عِندِنَا ۚ كَذَٰلِكَ نَجْزِى مَن شَكَرَ
as a favor from Ourself; thus, We reward anyone who acts grateful.
Surah Al Qamar (The Moon), verse 35
وَإِذْ تَأَذَّنَ رَبُّكُمْ لَئِن شَكَرْتُمْ لَأَزِيدَنَّكُمْ ۖ وَلَئِن كَفَرْتُمْ إِنَّ عَذَابِى لَشَدِيدٌ
And ˹remember˺ when your Lord proclaimed, ‘If you are grateful, I will certainly give you more. But if you are ungrateful, surely My punishment is severe.’ Surah Ibrahim, verse 7
I managed to read Ladies of Hive's #64 contest almost immediately after it was posted. I go on with my day having this question playing in the back of my head. My mind wandered to various pockets of memories and events, containing so many people and so many exchanges in between. BUT, as I analyzed them, it all boils down to this:
I am most grateful for being given the opportunity and the means to reconnect back with my faith.
This is the first time I am joining the Hives ladies contest; I have taken an extra-long time to write down this piece to ensure it will be a time-worthy read.
I would have like to tag and invite another lady to do a write on this contest, but as I am a newbie on Ecency, I honestly haven't made any friends yet 🙃. I hope I could connect with many of you here, and may you find this writing beneficial 💛💛
👉Prenote: this will be a rather long and emotional post, so please bear with me.
Context
Before we dive deeper into my reflection (beautifully prompt by @kaerpediem 's question this week), let me give some background details.
I was born into a Muslim family in Malaysia in a multi-race and multi-religion community. Growing up, my parents were never strict about their children practicing religion, despite sending us to religious classes and having a private tutor coming to the house on the weekend. I was away from my family for the large majority of my life. At each stage, I physically moved further away from home. At 13, I attended boarding school (although it was only 45 minutes away from home 😂), at 18, I went into college to study abroad. At 20, I came to Australia to do my Bachelor's degree in Pharmacy. I've stayed since graduation as I had the opportunity to secure employment here. As you can see, for the past 15+ years ago, I was on my own a lot; I was the adult to the budding tween, I was the adult to my raging-blood teenager, I was the adult to my confused young adult.
Throughout all those phases, I did attend religion class but never really understood the essence of it; faith. It was more of a shove-down-your-throat- -this-is-what-you-do-since-you-are-a-Muslim. Therefore, I never felt the urgency to practice because I did not understand my religion.
DON'T GET ME WRONG. I believe Allah is the one true God all along, but my heart was having difficulties connecting the responsibilities and duties I have to carry out as a Muslim to my belief in Him.
Having no grounding elements, I now see how I grew further away from Him as I made my way through high school, college, and university. Without my moral compass, I'm diluting out the best part of my life, and it starts damaging me without realizing it. I began losing parts of myself, compromising my values (that I'm trying to uphold more and more these days), and I became a heathen, monstrous, self-destructing nuclear.
Finding my way back home
The reconnection began with a deep dive into YouTube.
Ahhhh... the black hole of Youtube. Who hasn't had those unplanned sessions where it just became a continuous string of videos from one to the next. I'm grateful for in one of my deep dives; I found a light that kickstarted my journey back to my Creator.
The particular one that stuck very well with me was a series created by Ust Omar Suleiman discussing The Beginning and the End
He presented the topic surrounding Islam gently and most beautifully; my heart began to understand why I am placed on this earth, my purpose, who created me, and the importance + benefits of all of His commandments. Those responsibilities began to feel less and less of a chore as I found meaning in carrying them out. I started to truly understand the beauty of Islam. This reconnection slowly became nourishment for my starving soul.
From that point on, I could see I had managed to reboot my belief in Islam and better understand my religion. That doesn’t mean to say I become a pious person right away. I stump, struggle, stumble, and am still fighting my temptation to resist my inner devil and lower desire.
Thriving with the invisible illness - my mental health.
My faith helps me heal.
In early 2016, something personal happened in my life, and it brought me into a deep depression that I was suicidal. I only knew what I was experiencing was depression because I had suicidal thoughts. It wasn’t that I wanted to kill myself and preamp the event, but it was more that I didn’t want to be in this world anymore. I believe in the afterlife, and I just wanted to move on. I tried to skip living on Earth and go straight to be with the safety of my Lord. That's how much I was hurting.
I was miserable. Crying myself to sleep continuously for like a month plus, going through my day as a living zombie - I finally feel hollow inside. Knowing that is not normal, I braved myself to see my GP, and that’s when I got my formal diagnosis of major depression.
I conveyed to my doctor that medication should be the last option for my treatment plan. It is ironic as I am a pharmacist, and I learned the mechanism of how the drugs work, their safety profile, success rate, etc., etc. Yet, I insisted with my doctor I wanted a more sustainable route; therapy sessions. Attending therapy sessions with psychologists doing cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) helps to reshape the way I process my day-to-day events and how to manage my intrusive thoughts. Coupled with my reconnection to my faith, I begin to heal.
Relapse: needing "faith booster."
As time passed by, I thought I was getting better with my mental health; I began to be more lenient with myself, not doing as much of the therapy as I was supposed to. Eventually, I fall off the wagon. It was worse as I was a nuclear to myself and the people closest to me. I regretted that the situation had to get out of control to realize I was sick. I redo the process of going to the GP and seeing a psychiatrist, wherein in 2020, I am formally diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
With the knowledge of my new diagnosis and determination to repair all the damage I’ve done, I wanted to be more vigilant and consistent with my treatment plan.
One part of the plan is to make myself rooted in religion again, and I thought to myself it would be best to start attending the mosque. A quick Google search showed me Swan Valley Mosque as the closest option.
FYI, the mosque is frequent by the Bosnian community within the area. Thus the majority of the sermon and conversations among its patron is also in Bosnian. Despite not understanding a single word in Bosnian, my heart could still understand the purity of the message delivered from the imam because of his passion and enthusiasm (sidenote: there was always a sister translating the main point/summary to me). The ladies are always warm and welcoming every time I attend the mosque.
By coming back to the faith, I’m building a family-away-from-my -blood family here.
My virtual spiritual guide - AA Plus
I have subscribed to Aida Azlin's Tuesday's Love Letter for many years, alongside watching her sweet video reminders about the religion on her Youtube channel. When I knew about AA Plus, I did not hesitate to sign up as I see her as a creditable person, beautiful writer, and devoted student of the religion. I full-heartedly believe she (and her team) can help me with my journey of falling in love with Islam.
AA Plus is a private online platform where I gather with fellow Muslim ladies and attend classes taught by certified teachers. All the materials are aesthetically pleasing and easy to digest even on those heavier topics.
( feast your eyes on the thoughtfully crafted wallpaper they made )
AA Plus also keeps me occupied and very accountable for spending my time in a day. Just look at all the activities available to join in January 2022 alone; I never have any time even to begin to be "destructive" again.
Quoting Mark Dayton, "Idle time is the devil's play." This hits me so deep in my core that I could still see the scars (physical, mental, emotional, and psychological) from my destructive behaviors. I pray with all the opportunities and means given to me, I can be steadfast on the correct path.
Thank you for spending your time reading my heart-felt reflection on this week contest.
Sincerely
mysterycrumb.
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