Maryam Lemu – Trust, Belief & Hope – 2

			I always be lacking ministry and regime. Bismillahirrahmanirrahim Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi
wabarakatuhu My name is Miriam lemo. And welcome back to my lecture series. I've been talking about
trust, belief and hope. During the last episode, I promised that I would share tips on how to build
on taqwa, which is God consciousness. And just a reminder, I am not a scholar. I'm just a student.
Each day I learn and grow from everyone and everything around me. taqwa, God consciousness, they
should be a constant in our lives, they should always be running behind the scenes, it should always
be steady and stable. Allah says in the Quran, the most honorable is the most God conscious. He also
		

			said and for everyone, and for everyone who is conscious of Allah, he always prepares the way out
and provides for him from sources he could never imagine. I love that. We often take vitamins and
minerals to build a strong immune system to fight against diseases and also to prevent them. We
taqwa we start to develop a strong spiritual immune system. We need to immunize ourselves to
strengthen our faith, immunize ourselves to prevent the diseases of the heart, immunize ourselves to
give us more confidence in our faith, and also to help us survive the trials. immunizing with taqwa
is that constant awareness of feeling or less presence always in our lives, knowing that he sees us,
		

			knowing that he hears us, he knows what we are going through. He knows our deepest fears and
thoughts, everything about us and allowing him to also be our guide. For me, this was very, very
hard growing up, it was very difficult for me to achieve that feeling. That connection with Allah,
truly believing that Allah sees me is hearing me, and he knows everything that I'm going through.
		

			It was very tough. I grew up in a very religious household. My father and my brother are both
religious scholars. And my mother has written so many books and given lectures all over the world on
Islam, and I took Islam for granted. It was served to me on a silver platter so to speak. However, I
was more of a Muslim by name. Even though we read the Quran, and we went through her deeds as a
family, we sat together shared the beautiful stories from the Sierra. And I saw Islam being
practiced. However, I had two experiences that I went through that looking back I think, really
affected my faith. The first thing that really bothered me was that society had expectations of me
		

			of who I was supposed to be how I was supposed to behave. And I was judged often. And also that
expectation that they had really was a turnoff, because often when I go out, they criticize my
dressing. they criticize my speech, the company I kept and my conduct and unfortunately I rebelled.
I was like, okay, you don't like this, then I do the total opposite. The second contributing factor
to my lack of interest was the questionable character of the Islamic scholars that were teaching us
the Quran. One of them tried to get us to take foodstuff from my mother's store from time to time
when he comes to teach us it actually tell us to go bring a specific item for him. Obviously, that's
		

			stealing another one which still disgust me today. Whenever I see him tried to * me. I was
really young, we were landing or on with him under him. We were interested in his hands as an Amana.
It was actually my late half brother, may Allah have mercy on him, who realized what was going on
and moved me from my sitting position. So he couldn't have physical contact with me to get even he
would actually report me to my father and tell him that I was misbehaving or my brother was
misbehaving. And my father would discipline us. Lita Alhamdulillah, he was changed. But what is so
pathetic about this man today is he walks around preaching with errors of relevance, but Allah sees
		

			them all. I've heard of so many horrendous stories of people who have been through far worse
experiences than I did. Sadly, I did change this experience I went through affected me Why? Because
the person who was meant to teach me the message from Allah didn't behave according to the preaching
to the teachings of Islam. And this was a real turnoff. There's a lot that parents could learn from
my experience and other people's experiences. Number one is to make sure they go out of their way to
be very vigilant to protect their children, keep them in open places. Make sure that they make the
children feel very comfortable reporting whatever it is that makes them uncomfortable, and then
		

			never let your guard down. be extremely vigilant when it comes to your children. And because
unfortunately, there's no standardized curriculum for Islamia in the absence of this stuff.
		

			Some Islamia tutors can come up with their own methodology and this methodology is causing a lot of
damage. We are lacking institutions that will set a standard for at least certain basics when it
comes to teaching the Quran. Sadly, we focus so much more on how much of the Quran we have
memorized, and how we pronounce each word perfectly, more than whether we understand the meaning the
message of the Quran, whether it's translated into character, and good action, there are so many
whom I know who teach the Quran and who recite so beautifully, sometimes move one two tears, but
they have questionable character, we memorize verses and hadiths which we don't know the meaning of,
		

			we are not actually getting the message from Allah, I strongly believe that we need to put a lot of
emphasis on not only learning how to pronounce verses in the Quran perfectly, but I believe most
importantly, that we should either learn the language of the Quran, or memorize the meaning of the
Quran. So we get this powerful message to us. If I may digress, even in the Friday sermons that we
go to, in many, many mosques in non Arab speaking countries, the sermon is delivered in a language
that most people don't understand. Some mosques make an effort to make sure they deliver it in the
language the majority speak. However, this is a strong concern. Why? Because who are we preaching
		

			to? What message are we trying to get across? And why shouldn't they make noise when they don't know
what is being said? This is just my honest opinion. As for me, I had a lot of questions, but I
didn't take for answers. Islam just seemed to be so complicated. I felt that Allah wasn't answering
my prayers, because I prayed and I just didn't see those results. And prayers became more like an
exercise for me. Sadly, I skipped on many of my prayers. It wasn't until my mid 20s into my early
30s, that I started to discover Islam. And throughout this time, when I wasn't praying, I actually
hid this from my husband, I think more out of shame because of the family I came from. But I started
		

			to feel this emptiness inside, I started to feel that something was missing. So I called my brother
noodle. And I shared what I was going through with him. And this was Alhamdulillah, the beginning of
a turning point for me. He told me that Allah was very merciful, and that he knows what I'm going
through. And that he is very forgiving. Now, contrary to what I thought he would say is Merriam,
you're going to burn in * a sticker for Allah. He told me that Allah was closer to me than I
imagined. And that I should start to count my blessings. And this was something I never ever took
the time to do. He got me to realize that some of those things that I prayed for may not have been
		

			good for me. But he also got me to see that there are so many things that I didn't pray for, that
Allah had given the Allah has blessed me with. I remember feeling extremely guilty, that I had
doubted Allah, that I had abandoned Allah, I cried, and I asked Allah to forgive me. And then I got
curious enough to start reading. And so I started reading small, small, I still read small, small,
that's why I say I'm not a scholar, I'm a student, I started to observe and look around me. The
feeling that I got whenever I got a hug from someone that want that happiness, that comfort, I
realized that that was a less presence in my life. Alhamdulillah my mom taught me to appreciate
		

			nature, I started to notice a large presence. In a beautiful sunrise and a spectacular golden
sunset, I started to look in the sky and watch how the clouds floated by, and the stars how they
shine like diamonds in the sky. And that was a last presence, His power, His Majesty, in the flowers
and the smell, and the beauty in insects, the beauty of a butterfly, how it not only pollinates but
it makes the world beautiful, just by being in it. I saw online, every intricate detail of the
design of the insects and the creatures all around us. And then a leaf fell on my lap. At that same
moment. When I looked up in the tree I was sitting under and I saw a gazillion leaves and looked
		

			around me and 1000s and 1000s of leaves everywhere, everywhere. And I thought of the number of
leaves that keep falling where I am in the whole universe, and how many trees how many leaves and
that Allah says not a leaf falls, but he knows it that Allah is conscious of every single leaf that
falls
		

			and hamdulillah for the ability to see, to feel unless presence to smell is crazy.
		

			In the flowers, and in nature, just to be able to taste the wonders of what Allah has blessed us
with, I can never stop being grateful for finding and discovering Allah Alhamdulillah I thought I
would be giving you just two episodes, but I realized I have just one more to go to share with you.
So please join me for the next episode where inshallah I'll go through trials and how I got to
understand what these trials are from Allah, and how if you feel you've gone off the right path of
the Serato Mr. Kim, I might be able to share a few tips to help us get back on track. If you enjoyed
this, please share it with others. You can also follow me on Facebook or subscribe to my YouTube
		

			channel at Miriam lemo and look forward to having you back Assalamu alaikum