Sleepless Nights

In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

I sit awake in the dead of the night after hours of restlessly tossing and turning.

I wonder why it is that I can't sleep. Perhaps I'm worried, concerned? Nervous?

About what?

Everything I suppose...yet nothing at the same time...

Earlier discussions resonate in my mind, nay...in my soul.

The people I speak to say things my head can't understand but I know somehow my heart can't forget.

Words, feelings, regrets, pain...they mesh together into a glorious chaos that consumes me.

It all begins to make sense. Through the rapture of everything good and evil I begin to see a purpose beyond the tangible.

I feel the comfort of a blanket around the coldness in my soul.

Why have I been so blind these past years? I ask myself this question angrily...daily.

Why could I not have seen...?

All this time I should have been asking myself....why was I not looking?

There is indeed a profound difference between the two.

What I see now I see because it is my time to realize. What I experienced before I experienced because it was my time to learn.

Great lessons aren't just handed in textbook style notes. Great lessons are lived.

Profound changes in heart are not just products of everyday happenings...they're products of the unusual, the extreme, the unexpected.

Who am I to question why? When does that question become irrelevant?

I realize it became irrelevant...or rather...dangerous...when it began to consume me.

When my happiness became an instrument of my regret.

Happiness...why should I experience happiness when I feel I have lost myself so many times?

Am I deserving of happiness I wonder...

Then I realize once again...

My regret has become my Shaitan.

I pray Istighfar.

The mistakes I made...the Sins I committed....they exist only in the past...and the past is no longer my life...it's paid time...it's gone.

...and I venture to waste my given time in sadness and regret instead of in happiness and gratefulness...

Allah gave me, in His infinite mercy, more minutes, hours, days to make up for things I regret.

I regret them still because I have dwindled that gift from the Al-Mighty.

Astagfurallah. May Allah forgive me my sins.

I search for happiness in my present state...

Its source is no where around me...its within me.

The condition of my heart is the measure of my happiness.

The condition of my soul is the gatekeeper of my sadness.

I hear the Qur'an from the lips of a loved one and I feel my heart being slowly repaired.

I hear the words of wisdom from my advisers and the walls that protect my soul are strong once again.

Who am I to question happiness? Who am I to define it?

I am merely a desert traveler with a parched soul.

The Qur'an is my water.

Allah is my sustenance.

I realize now....that it is not my inability to sleep that is my worry...

It's my inability to awaken.

Ya Allah help me to awaken from my slumber and be aware of the trials of this Dunya and their insignificance in light of Your blessings.

Ya Allah give me the strength to put aside this Dunya and find true Happiness in Your praise and Glory.

Ya Allah....forgive me my sins and those of my friends and my family and the ummah.

Ya Allah, help me to rest tonight in a manner that allows me to awake tomorrow with a deeper understanding of this world and a greater more powerful longing for the next.

Ameen.