Maryam Amir – eading the feeling of dreading Ramadan

Many of you have mentioned dreading, the feeling you have of

dread about Ramadan coming. People all around you are super excited

about it coming, and you know you're supposed to be joyful, but

for you, Ramadan might often be a time of extra guilt, and so you're

already nervous about it. That's often because you can't do what

you think everyone is expecting you to do in Ramadan. And that

could actually be because you physically can't fast. But it

could also be that you can fast and you can pray, and you are

fasting and praying, or at least trying your best to do that, but

you're not able to do all the extra things like going to the

masjid or reading the Quran or just praying extra prayers. And

sometimes that's because of a mental health related issue. But

also it could be, realistically, you physically can't, like you

work full time, or you are, you know, stay at home, mom with

little kids, or stay at home parent, or you just have other

responsibilities where you can't drop everything and just do all

this extra worship. But if you are sitting in front of the Kaaba in

Ramadan with no responsibilities, how do you think your Ramadan

would look like? Your issue is not about not having strong enough

Eman, so I don't want you to frame it in that perspective. Even when

you talk about it to your own self, what you need is a

perspective change. Be excited about Ramadan, because it's the

month of extra joy and extra reward and extra worship and extra

mercy and extra acceptance of dua, whether or not you think you're

doing everything extra normally change your baby's diaper. Are you

weeping out of joy from the strength of your faith? Probably

not. But when you intend that you do that to take care of you know,

helping relieve the distress of a little believer, Allah will

relieve your distress in the Hereafter, as well as inshaAllah

in this life, but in Ramadan, that same exact action that you do

regularly every day is extra rewarded when you're a nurse and

you take care of your patients and you can't do extra things because

you're literally there serving other people. Don't you know how

beloved that is to Allah, Subhanahu wa taala, I want you to

apply that rule to every part of your life, Ramadan is a month of

extra blessings, not because you do something that's worthy of

extra blessing, which, of course, absolutely we should try to do as

much extra as we can, but Ramadan is a month of blessing anyway. So

whatever you're doing today inshallah will be extra rewarded

in that month. So fam, get excited about Ramadan coming. You don't

have to be perfect for Ramadan. You just have to be you. And you

try harder. And Allah sees you be more intentional that you're doing

everything for the sake of Allah. Try to do extra whenever you can

remember ALLAH, keep your tongue moving with the kid of Allah at

all times. May Allah bless us with Ramadan. Ramadan Kareem faith

sibs.