10 Blessing Tuesday

Rabbuka al-Akram. Your Lord is Most Generous.

I'm not sure if any of my readers have checked out emanrace.com, a site encouraging Muslims to compete in some "above and beyond" acts of faith, geared towards increasing Iman (faith.)

There are some acts to be performed everyday (like a number of sunnah salaat, witr, fajr in jam3a etc.) and some acts that specially depend on which day of the week it is. For example, fasting on Mondays and Thursdays, reading Surat al Kahf on Fridays. There are also "replacements" like 10 minutes of dhikr or reading hadith for sisters who cannot perform some of the acts (like fasting and salaat) due to menstruation. It's kind of interesting really.

Right now it's Wednesday (or in fact it is Thursday in some parts of the world) but I wanted to go ahead and publicly do the Tuesday special, which is to count 10 blessings. It's supposed to make you think. Not long ago, I could sit an begin to cry thinking of blessings... things for which I can only say alhamdulillah.

But here is a list for this week's Tuesday. I hope maybe my readers would like to add their own, in the comment section.

I am thankful for...

1. Being shown a man of good character and manners who is strong in piety to Allah--seeing not only that he exists but having hope of marrying him. Alhamdulillah.
   
2. My Arabic study-buddy; as much as I love learning the Arabic language I was not very committed when studying alone, but my study-buddy and I now meet a few times a week to review conjugations and she is really helping me learn. Alhamdulillah.
   
3. My job(s); I guess most people complain about their jobs and I don't love the work, but the flexibility is a necessity for me, and it always manages to pay the bills. Alhamdulillah.
4. The Muslim community where I live; it's so integrated, Arabs, Desis, converts, all mixed up and working together to teach Islam to non-Muslims and to develop the community to tackle the challenges of being Western Muslims. Alhamdulillah.
   
5. The imam at my masjid; the community is one thing, but the imam deserves a special point today because he offers so many classes and works so hard to be available as a resource to the community, answering questions and teaching. Even before I knew he was the imam he really appealed to me with his calm and respectful manner of teaching, and I have the world of respect for him (even though he teases me for taking notes.) Alhamdulillah.
6. My roommate. My rent is low and she cooks about as often as I do, meaning that not everything to eat in the house is cooked by me (which is nice, to not have to cook it all.) Also, being now in her circle of friends has introduced me to all sorts of Muslimahs, of all ages and backgrounds, and helped me integrate into this very special community. Alhamdulillah.
7. My brother. I had to call him today because I pulled my shoulder; it's a problem I have had sometimes in the past, and usually while he was around and he was the only one to be able to fix it. I called him today and he recommended some things I could try myself to alleviate the pain, but it's nice to just be able to call him up for something like that and he's very understanding. Alhamdulillah.
   
8. Anyone who has felt the tiniest bit of sympathy after my complaints about being spoofed. Even people I don't know very well have felt at least a little bad, and I am thankful that people know me well enough to trust me when I tell them what is going on. And that they trusted me enough in the first place to not believe the spoofer. Alhamdulillah.
   
9. Ever-increasing sense of modesty. I now wear hijab of course, but I begin to feel less and less comfortable in tight clothes, which makes it much easier to dress loosely anyway. Alhamdulillah.
10. The man to whom I said shahadah, who is acting as my wali, and is never far when I need his counsel, even when he's busy. Alhamdulillah.
    

:-)