the blessings of here and now

bismillahirrahmanirrahim,

assalamualaikum wrb,

alhamdulillah, all praises and thanks belong to Allah, al Ghafur al Wadud.. may He bestow His mercy upon us all and forgive all our sins, ameen. peace and blessings upon Rasulullah SAW. 

ahlan wa sahlan, ya Ramadan. 

I would just like to note that I have commited myself to writing somewhat of a reminder every week for this whole month, kind of like a Ramadan series, iRamadan :D, with the intention to do what I can in terms of doing more, so please make doa that Allah makes it easy and accepts it from me. 

we must give all thanks and praise to Allah SWT for only because of His mercy, you and I are still able to experience this holy month. we should never take for granted of this opportunity because whether we realize it or not, some people didn't get to this month... Allah knows best and His plans are certainly without a doubt the most perfect, but we must embrace the gratitude towards Him, at how we are... here. Alhamdulillah. 

so now the question is where are we going to go from here? when someone gives you a piece of chicken in your dire state of hunger, what will you do? you thank him and then what? of course we're going to eat it too. it'd be silly to thank him and then not eat it. so now in our dire need for an upgrade in our iman and amal, Allah has given us Ramadan, thank Him and then what? of course we must do something to show our thanks, and reap the rewards to please Him. now isn't that showing true gratitude, and with love for our Rabb. Allah chose you, and me, to experience Ramadan again... feel His love, He has manifested so much love and mercy in ourselves and we don't even notice, astaghfirullah...

let us begin now... slowly but surely. don't burn ourselves out, we must prepare also for the last 10 days. but main point is we must really show Allah that we are prepared to make this our best Ramadan yet and continue to hope for His love and mercy to carry us through with ease despite the difficulties and struggle we may endure. let us remember that Ramadan is not merely about the restraint of food and drinks. it's about a lot more, did we forget that it was the month of Ramadan that Allah sent us the biggest miracle which we know as the Quran? subhanAllah, what better time to be close to the Quran if not now? read the Quran, ponder over it. Allah constantly calls out to those who believe, be those who believe! don't we want to be in such honor, where Allah is addressing us as 'O You who believe'?

even if we are doing little but if we are already doing more than the last Ramadan, perhaps that is a good indication. take care of our fardh, increase our sunat, revive the sunnah. 

life as a lot of us notice is going by really fast, almost like a blink of an eye... and we just cannot afford to be frozen in motion as time passes us by so quickly we don't even know when time will say goodbye. Ramadan is here, and we are here, alhamdulillah.. so please let us embrace the moment and start the race... not with each other but against our nafs. 

astaghfirullah, astaghfirullah, astaghfirullah. may Allah guide us to make this our best Ramadan yet, may Allah help us to increase our amal for the sake of His pleasure, may Allah purify our hearts and restrain us from things that would distance us from Him, may Allah guide us to seek Him constantly both in ease and hardship.. may all that we do lead us steps closer to jannatul firdaus ameen.

if we want a makeover, do it now... while we are still here. insyaAllah, hope to write again next week, please make doa that Allah blesses our effort, and be pleased with us and our families ameen. 

and please forgive me for all the mistakes i have made, may Allah forgive us all ameen. 

wassalam