Naima B. Robert – Advice on Gratitude in Times of Hardship for Muslim Women

Smilla,

has it ever occurred to you to make

sujood in a time of calamity?

Not just any sujood, but sujood shukr,

prostration

for gratitude.

In this show up snippets, I'm going to

share with you a story that I tell

in my book Show Up A Motivational Message

For Muslim Women

and it was shared with me by a

sister who came to see me while I

was in the hospital with my late

husband. And she told me the story of

a couple who had a daughter who was

very very ill.

And every time that they went to the

doctors,

their daughter had been kept in. And whenever

they would give the couple some more bad

news,

the husband would turn to his wife and

say,

not yet.

And they would go away, and then they

came back again, they were told more bad

news. And the husband turned to his wife

and said, not yet.

And this happened a few times, them coming

in being told ever worse news about their

daughter's condition,

and the husband turning to his wife and

saying, not yet.

Then the fateful day came when they arrived

at hospital and they were told that their

daughter was no more.

And upon receiving that news,

the husband looked at at his wife and

said, now.

And the 2 of them fell into

Sajda Tushukar.

Now the hospital staff was amazed and some

of them were horrified because

sajda tushukar is something that we do when

we are thankful, when something good happens. And

they didn't understand why this couple was making

sujood at a time like this.

And the husband explained

that

if Allah

took their daughter back,

they would

immediately default to gratitude.

That they would display

their gratitude to Allah

for having blessed them with her in the

first place,

for having allowed them to be her parents,

to be her care

givers for the time that she was allotted.

And I don't know about you, but this

story

really affected me very deeply.

And I made the decision that if,

Laqadr Allah,

my husband did not survive,

I would have the same response.

And I

talk about this in the book.

I describe

receiving the news

of my husband's

anything in your life that you feel

you could potentially

reframe

as something to be grateful for? Sometimes it's

not the loss.

We focus so much on the loss because

we're losing. All the time, every day, we're

losing.

This life is a series of losses and

disruptions to our norm.

But every time we lose something, there's a

reminder that we had it in the first

place.

And I feel like focusing on the thing

that you had in the first place, the

fact that you had it,

is in itself

a reason to be grateful.

If you found this useful, please do share

it and may it be a source of

Khair for everyone who hears it.