Project 365

Love is beyond either condition: without spring, without autumn, it is always fresh.

— Jalal ad-Din Rumi

🙂

You are the comfort of my soul
in the season of sorrow.
You are the wealth of my spirit
in the heartbreak of loss.

— Jalal ad-Din Rumi

You never abandoned me no matter how many times I betrayed You and broke my promises. You are always there for me. You always listen to my prayers. You always give me a second chance. Do I deserve all this, O Allah?

Travel agent (TA): How old are you?

Me (A): 25… (silent). Uhm, actually, 26.

TA: Do you have an ISIC card?

A: Nope.

TA: Sorry, but you can’t get a discount fare. You can only get a normal fare.

A sad realization. I wish my age could freeze and stop. I want to be 25 years old for the rest of my life.

I’m currently in the process of applying for a visa and look what my friend found! Look at the date I put under my signature! Do you see the YEAR?!

How can I be THAT reckless?! I mean, this is a visa for God sake!!! If it weren’t because of my friend, I would send this application form with the wrong year and my visa would be rejected right away :|.

I think I’ve been too stressed 🙁

I don’t know… I’ve been so worried. Worried about something I don’t even know about. I hate this feeling. I can feel my heart beats so fast and I haven’t had a good sleep. I always have this when something bad is going to happen. I really hope that’s not the case.

A Moroccan dress and a book 🙂 Oh! And some postcards as well. I forgot to include them in the picture 😛

Interesting choice of book by my friend… I don’t know why he gave me this book hahaha. I’ve sent all my books to Jakarta. So I’m happy that I have a new book to read, although I don’t know if I’ll read it now 😛

I have absolutely NO IDEA what to do!!! If I could do istikharah right about NOW, I’d do it. But I can’t! 🙁 Ya Allah… if I missed it, I’d regret it all my life. But if I just go… I haven’t even finished this thesis! How can I go?! My family would definitely disagree with me. But I don’t want to disappoint my dear friend! Oh ya Allah… I really need Your guidance now. I only have few weeks left. What can I do???

* I know that Allah SWT has a good reason why He made women to have a menstrual period. But during this time, the only thing I want to do is sholat…! I can’t do it… :-S and I don’t know what to do besides making a du’a…

This is beautiful. The metaphors she used remind me of those used by Rumi 🙂

[…] If you allow dunya to own your heart, like the ocean that owns the boat, it will take over. You will sink down to the depths of the sea. You will touch the ocean floor. And you will feel as though you were at your lowest point. Entrapped by your sins and the love of this life, you will feel broken. Surrounded by darkness. That’s the amazing thing about the floor of the ocean. No light reaches it.

[…]

If you seek Him, God can raise you up, and replace the darkness of the ocean, with the light of His sun. He can transform what was once your greatest weakness into your greatest strength, and a means of growth, purification and redemption. Know that transformation sometimes begins with a fall. So never curse the fall. The ground is where humility lives. Take it. Learn it. Breathe it in. And then come back stronger, humbler and more aware of your need for Him. Come back having seen your own nothingness and His greatness.

[…]

And so, this is a call to all those who have become enslaved by the tyranny of the self, imprisoned in the dungeon of the nafs (self) and desires.  It is a call to all those who have entered the ocean of dunya, who have sunk into its depths, and become trapped by its crushing waves. Rise up. Rise up to the air, to the Real world above the prison of the ocean. Rise up to your freedom. Rise up and come back to life. Leave the death of your soul behind you. Your heart can still live and be stronger and purer than it ever was. […] Come back to where you began. Come back Home. Know that when all the other doors have shut in your face, there is One that is always open. Always. Seek it. Seek Him and He will guide you through the waves of the cruel ocean, into the mercy of the sun.

This world cannot break you–unless you give it permission. And it cannot own you unless you hand it the keys — unless you give it your heart.  And so, if you have handed those keys to dunya for a while–take them back. This isn’t the End. You don’t have to die here. Reclaim your heart and place it with its rightful owner:

God.

— Yasmin Mogahed

Read the complete article at SuhaibWebb.com.

The next time you get upset, remind yourself: is your anger and revenge worth more or is the forgiveness of Allah SWT that He’s offering you [because you forgive someone] worth more?

— Nouman Ali Khan

Eid mubarak! Eid saeed! Kullu sanah wa antum bekhair…

It was a great Eid with Indonesian friends and delicious foods! Lontong, gulai kambing, rendang, and so many other foods that I can’t remember LOL. I was too busy eating that I forgot to take some pictures of the food itself! 😛 Well, I didn’t take that many pictures to begin with. There were many photographers with DLSR cameras so all I needed to do was to pose *kidding*. But these are the only pictures that I took.

I noticed two things about these pictures. One was that I looked soooo thin *panic* and second was that I was the only unmarried single woman there! Hahahaha. These women are my close-knit Indonesian Muslim family :). They make me feel "home" and keep me in check every time. Whether I am in Australia or in the Netherlands, I always make sure that I’m close to at least one family. I love spending with families and playing with their kids. I also like the fact that they keep me grounded and always remind me about certain things. Some of them automatically act as my guardian without being asked and I think that’s important — at least for me — to have someone much older than you to rely on, especially when you’re confused on two choices or need an elderly or wise advice :).

Anyway, after spending the Eid with them, I spent the rest of the afternoon with my Dutch friends that I met at the mosque. It was an Eid brunch/lunch a la Dutch :). Breads, cookies, cheese, and different kinds of spreads. It was really nice to see them again! I really enjoyed it! Alhamdulillah.

Ramadan came, but Bairam* is with us.
The lock came, but the key is with us.

We have cleaned soul and heart with fasting.
The dirt which has been with us is cleansed now.

Some stress comes from fasting,
But the invisible treasure of heart is with us.

Ramadan came to the heart’s temple;
The one who created heart is with us.

— Jalal ad-Din Rumi

My sister Mulia who ordered Turkish food for me 2 weeks ago all the way from UK, sent me this poem 🙂

* Bairam is the Turkish name for Eid al-Fitr