Self First

Reminder for myself from my Dhuha class :

يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا قُوا أَنفُسَكُمْ وَأَهْلِيكُمْ نَارًا وَقُودُهَا النَّاسُ وَالْحِجَارَةُ عَلَيْهَا مَلَائِكَةٌ غِلَاظٌ شِدَادٌ لَّا يَعْصُونَ اللَّهَ مَا أَمَرَهُمْ وَيَفْعَلُونَ مَا يُؤْمَرُونَ

“Oh you who believe! Save yourselves and your families from a Fire whose fuel is Men and Stones, over which are (appointed) angels stern (and) severe, who flinch not (from executing) the Commands they receive from Allah, but do (precisely) what they are commanded.” ~ QS At-Tahrim 66:6

- Make supplication for ourselves FIRST, before supplicating for others.

- Bring ourselves closer to Allah FIRST, before asking others to be closed to Allah. Always start the good deeds first.

Wallahu’alam

Lessons Learnt Today

Like a school, I learnt three lessons of life today.

• A mother cannot afford to oversleep. I have been a mother for 12 years now, I only learnt it today. Dang! As usual, my morning routine is that,  I wake everyone up for the Subuh prayers and my girls will get ready to school. After my girls left for school today, I thought of taking a very short nap before I started my daily routine. Normally I will nap about the most half an hour. But today was exceptional, the weather was so good and I woke up almost at 11 am! And I must sent Affandy to school latest by 11.30 am. I did not do the laundry and I had no time to cook. Just enough time to for a quick shower and headed straight to Affandy’s school.

• Because of the rush, I did not have the time to grab any breakfast at home. I was really hungry when I reached the school. So I thought of buying food from the school canteen. Only parent volunteers are allowed to purchase food from the canteen. Since I had some volunteer works to do, so I thought of having my breakfast cum lunch there. What pissed me off was the attitude of the canteen staffs at this particular stall. When teachers or the school staffs came to buy food from their stall, they greeted them like royals. “Good morning, teacher.” “Selamat pagi, cikgu.” “May I help you?” “Nak makan apa hari ini, cikgu?” But….. when we parent volunteers came to their stall, they would reluctantly served us or ignored us till we called them that we wanted to buy food. What the fish! All the three canteen staffs SAW me when I approached their stall. But none of them came to me and they kept on talking and laughing as though I was invisible. They finally served me after my third call. For goodness sake, I did not beg for free meal. I payed for my food. So were all the other parents volunteers. If it’s not because of my hungriness, I would not buy food from this stall. So the lesson learnt is, never leave home with an empty stomach.

• I want to be informed if any of my children do something wrong. I thought all mothers have the same thought as mine, but I was wrong. I caught someone’s child wasted food a lot of times, so I  nicely approached the mother to inform her of the situation. Upon seeing her look, I regret telling her. You know, the kind of look that says “Whatever”  or “So?”. If someone tells me of the same, I will be very grateful and will correct the wrongdoing that my child does. But in this case, it seems that I was like being a busybody informing the mother. So, I will never ever report to her anything about her child.

Just Be Thankful

I am thankful that I have the chance to be under the wings of millions of angels again on Sunday. I can never be bored with the routine on my Dhuha class : recitation of Surah Al-Waqiah, Selawat and receiving pearls from my beloved Ustaz.

Our selawat to our beloved Rasulullah S.A.W

Pearls that I received today….

We tend to forget to count our blessings and be thankful of what we have when we always look at the situation above us.

Here’s an example :

We walk. We see someone rides a bicycle. We want to get a bicycle.

We ride a bicycle. We see someone rides a motorcycle. We want a motorcycle.

We ride a motorcycle. We see someone drives a car. We want to have a car.

We drive a car. We see someone drives a bigger luxury car. We want that too.

And the list goes on and on and on.

Why not look at things the other way round, try to look down.

Be thankful that you have a car to travel, others may only have a motorcycle.

Be thankful that you have a motorcycle to ride on, others may only have a bicycle.

Be thankful that you have a bicycle to ride, others may have to walk.

Be thankful that you can walk, others may have to be wheel-chaired.

Be thankful that you have to be wheel-chaired, others may be bed-ridden.

You see the point?  Think about it.

Death

Death is inevitable.

“Wheresoever you may be, death will overtake you even if you are in fortresses built up strong and high” ~ (Surah An-Nisa’ – 78)

Last week, I attended two funerals in two days straight.  On the second day, I managed to follow to the cemetery till the burial.

Upon hearing the Talqin…Astaghfirullahal ‘azim…. I got goosebumps and I shivered. The words went through the ears and straight to the heart.

Since I was at the cemetery, I visited my late parents’ graves. Missing them so much…

Trust ALLAH

Even how great and precise our plans are, if Allah does not want them to happen, they will NEVER happen.

I trust that there’s always a blessing in disguise.  I believe Allah will replace with something better or bigger. I just need to be patient. A lot of patient.

Be Prepared

If our life is fully dedicated to serve and satisfy this world;

~ busy working schedule in order to make more money,

~ no time to pray,

~ no time to recite Qur’an

~ no time to dzikir,

~ no time to Selawat,

~ no time to visit the masjid,

~ no time to seek religious knowledge….

BE PREPARED…..

to fall sick in the near future.

We work so hard to fulfill our satisfaction for the sake of the world, yet we ignore the needs of our innerselves to be with THE ONE.

Without realizing, we are making ourselves prone to illness that we can never think of.

The innerselves need to be fed with the prayers, dzikir, Qur’an and knowledge.

So, just be prepared….

Two Lessons

Life experience can be hurtful but it can also be an eye-opener and make me wiser.

I learnt two lessons of my life today.

When I am in high spirit and confident, there’s always someone who tried to bring me down.  This person may be someone close or just an acquaintance.  Making me feel unimportant and disrespected.  You know what, you won’t have the chance to bring me down.  I won’t let you.

When my voice is not heard even though my opinion is being sought.  They just don’t know how I gather my courage to talk in front of a group of people.  They simply shut me out.  I hope I can remember to stay mum the next time.  Silence is really golden.

Parent Focus Group

I attended a parents group discussion organized by the School Family Education (SFE) at my children’s school.  The topic for discussion was HOW TO SUPPORT YOUR CHILD EMOTIONALLY.  I was glad that I attended this group discussion as it was such an eye-opener.  Parents opened up and shared about their difficulties and experiences in raising their children.  It made me feel that I was not alone facing these obstacles of being parent.  No one is perfect and there’s always a room for improvement.  I was asked for one word to describe me being a parent.  I answered “occupied”.  Being a mother, really make me occupied with lots of things to do and monitor.

From the discussion, I learnt about the five critical emotional needs of children.  Children need to feel :

1) Respected

2) Important

3) Accepted

4) Included

5) Secure

Some phrases mentioned by the group faciliator caught my attention.

“There’s no such thing as bad child, only bad behaviour.”

“Parenting is a learnt skill, never always a natural skill.”

“Never tell a child – You Do What You Want.”

“Time may change, but the value of the family can never change.”

No Evil

See not what displeases Allah.

Speak no evil.

Hear no evil.

Do no evil.

Look to Allah with fear and hope.