Outside the colouring lines (Part 1)

Assalamualaikum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuh,

“And it may be that you dislike a thing which is good for you and that you like a thing which is bad for you. Allah knows but you do not know.” (Al-Baqarah, 2:216)

When I first read that I thought subhanAllah that is amazing, Allah knows us better than ourselves. But it's one thing to read it and say SubhanAllah and it's another to actually take it in and practice it. It's something I've come to realise, when we do things we perhaps shouldnt we get momentary bliss but straight after we feel an emptiness- it's an emptiness I couldn't describe to you without you feeling it.

I mean let's take addiction to chocolate (minor examples are probably are better than big ones in this case) say for some reason we are on a no-chocolate diet, but we keep going back to that delicate, crispy temptation- yet we feel guilty straight after, eventhough at the time we feel like we are walking on air- the delightful aroma filling our noses making us forget all about that 'silly oath', the whispering of Galaxy is enough to make us even forget what we are even doing right now.

So you took another bite despite promising not to, now you feel extremely guilty. Your thinking what was it all for?

It was for that one moment in time that minute, and now it's gone. I suppose its hard to imagine rewards for the future but yet we do it all the time. We revise and study for our exams. We work hard to earn money so we can buy a new car and so on, these all take time and its not instantly rewarded. Yet when it comes to (obviously not chocolate) sinning it's so easy to forget, to struggle, to perservere and to trust what Allah has told us.

Sometimes it might feel as though there is so many boundaries, boundaries you want to go past; I suppose we don't always want to live our lives inside the colouring lines, but those boundaries are so your picture can be perfect so it can look amazing.

If you always coloured outside the lines and it was the best colouring competition, do you think you would win? No right? Our competition is Jannah and doing things we arent meant is only decreasing our chance of achieving our goal.

At the time it's exhilarating colouring outside the lines- makes you feel like a rebel, it's delightfully blissful but when you evaluate your picture i.e our scales we see that it's a mess. It's not fun anymore and that's exactly how it is when we forget Allah and his advice.

We feel regret at our actions but this feeling of worthlessness can be prevented by taking the courage to stop ourselves before we do it. It doesn't have to be a big step small steps are the road to success. You dont become a millionaire over night (Not that it's so great to be one anyway)

Help yourself by reminding yourself of the reason you dont want to sin. Remember Allah, and I can vouch that this is the most hardest thing ever because honestly you literally shut out all thoughts because you don't want to face the truth, but ukhti you have to. Force yourself because I know ukhti you would never sin when you remember Allah InshaAllah.

And if you can't do that do this, every time you do the sin (by compulsion) think about how you feel now, what happiness you feel now after doing it and how Allah sees you.

I'm afraid a step we all need to take is removing denial and rejection. Denial in the sense that we don't even acknowledge that it's bad trying to make it seem okay, no! Accept it, its wrong! Don't reject it's a sin either! And next sincerely repent. Lastly move on, don't keep thinking about that sin trust Allah he will forgive.

And cooperate in righteousness and piety, but do not cooperate in sin and aggression. And fear Allah ; indeed, Allah is severe in penalty. (Al-Maida 5:2)

#CHANGE I

Wasalaam