Suzy Ismail – #52 AlHaqq

America, it's nice to see you again as we continue to bring the

divine into the daily by understanding how we can

incorporate the 99 names of Allah subhanaw taala into our daily

lives to improve our relationships with our spouse, and with our

children. The name that we're going to discuss today is

unhealthy, which means the truth. Now, the concept of the truth in

our relationships is is a bit of a tricky one. Because frequently,

between husband and wife or between child and parent, we will

hear a statement or a phrase such as, why are you not telling the

truth? Tell the truth. That's not really how it happened. Why don't

you tell how it really happened? Tell the truth. Now, what's

interesting about the truth is that we sometimes like to treat

the truth as if it is an unwavering absolute. But the

reality is that the only truth, the only health, which is

unwavering, which is an absolute, is a hack that refers to the name

of Allah subhanaw taala, because he is the truth. In our day to day

lives, the truth can often depend upon our perception. So rather

than viewing the truth as an absolute that exists outside of us

and who we are, instead, we understand that the truth can be

based on how we view it. So for example, if there is a husband and

a wife, who are in an argument, and the husband may say something

that was hurtful to the wife, or vice versa, the wife may say

something that is hurtful to the to the husband, in recounting the

situation, particularly in the counseling paradigm, which we see

consistently at Cornerstone, the reminiscence, or the remembrance

of what had actually occurred, may be different in each person's

view. So the husband may some say something such as I never said

anything hurtful, I didn't say it in that way, you're not telling

the truth. And vice versa, the wife may also say, Stop lying.

This is how it happened. In that type of a situation, as a

counselor, it's not the role of a third party to say, well, this is

exactly how it happened. You are telling the truth, and you are

not. Instead, the important takeaway from this type of

situation is to better understand the perspective, why does one

person perceive a situation in one way and another person perceive it

in a completely different way? You know, one of the exercises that we

do sometimes in psychology is there will be an image where if

you look at it from a certain angle, that may look like the

image of a young woman. And if you look at it from a different angle,

it may look like the image of an older woman. And, again, we'll

often see that what someone sees first, or how someone analyzes or

assesses the image first depends on what they view as the truth.

This means that the truth is no longer something that is

predictable, or something that everyone has to agree upon.

Instead, it is something that is based on perception, when we talk

about situations within a relationship. So this is very

different from an absolute truth, an absolute truth would be if we

were to say the sky is blue, the grass is green. However, if

someone were to say the grass is a light green, and the other person

were to say the grass is a dark green. Again, this is not a

shifting in truth, it is a difference in perspective. The

same goes for our children, when our children recount a situation

that may have occurred at school that may occur with friends, that

something they may have seen. Sometimes as parents, we may say

something like you're not telling the truth. That's not really what

happened. As a parent, this is where we should stop ourselves and

take a step back and put ourselves for a moment in the shoes of our

child. Why is our child viewing the situation in this way? Are

they really covering up for an action? Or is this how they

interpreted the situation? What is their perception, when we step

outside of our interpretation of the truth, and instead begin to

understand the perception of truth that someone else may be

conveying? This is how we can truly begin to build better

relationships and better understanding of one another. So I

pray that Allah subhanaw taala will help the truth allows our

understanding of truth and our knowledge of truth to expand and

our belief in the Absolute Truth of the Oneness of Allah subhanaw

taala to be our anchor, and everything that we do, does a

couple a little higher, and I look forward to speaking to you again,

as we continue to bring the divine into the daily as salaam alaikum.