Following is an article by 1 of my very close friends. Let's call her..XYZ :)
Love=Life
The heading might give the impression that the writer is someone who is having trouble coping with the outburst of hormones. Nope, this is not about shadowed images of love during the adolescent stage. But in a way, the equation does make a lot of sense, doesn’t it? What would life be if one is to wake up every day without even having the energy to face another day simply because of dread? Would dread be equivalent to the absence of love? That might make sense to some of us, if not all.
Everyone (at least everyone I know), have realistic wishes for themselves. To wake up in a place they love, to work in an environment they love, to make time for themselves to do things they love with the people they love, etc. In almost everything we do, there is a display of love though not everyone can see it. A person who works very hard, though he may be a loner, he exhibits his love for money even if that is all that he may be working for. So, would it be wrong to say that love may be the essence of life?
Now, how much of this love we so often talk about, is real and how much of it is really quite over-rated? Lets look at things at a deeper level. I don’t think I am wrong if I were to say that most of the things we love in life are only for a certain period of time. It wouldn’t be much of a task for us to recall a time when we would have almost sworn that we loved a certain thing. To make it simpler, I recall loving the color purple (please note that the term love is used quite loosely here), when I was in primary school. But now, if anyone were to ask me, I will stand by red. Does that mean that my love for purple when I was younger false? It just means our love tends to alter by itself as we change. It is not a question of which was true and which false. It’s just the way life is. Merging this idea with relationships, we might be able to recall a time when we would have loved someone very much and as time passed, the love gradually faded to a point where it becomes hard to comprehend why we even loved that person in the first place. As the saying goes, the only constant is change itself.
I was talking with some friends several days ago when the topic on marriage came up. One of my friends mentioned that the love she had for her husband was just not the same like it was before. She was not sure whether she even loved him at all. An older friend of mine mentioned some things that I will like to share. Firstly, he reminded her again that love before marriage is not the same as the way love is after marriage but that does not mean that the love has changed in terms of quantity. Allah has created various ways to make it so that the love between a husband and wife does not die. For that, He has created children.
Let’s ponder about this for a while, could it be possible that when the love seems so broken between a husband and his wife, the constant attention needed by the children makes the couple try harder to make things work somehow? We have probably heard this so many times before already but could it also be true that many of them do fall in love with each other all over again during the period of ‘tolerance’ (when they put up with each other though they may believe that their love is lost). I won’t deny that the love between husband and wife is pure but is it really permanent? Take for instance, when a spouse dies, does the other sit and mourn for the rest of lifetime? Isn’t it mandatory to move on? (relating to what I have mentioned in my intro, moving on does not mean that the love was false, it simply means that one is stepping onto the next path of life, designed for them). Though the love may leave its impact till the end of days, the love is still somewhat temporary.
Compare this to the love we have for Allah(s.w.t). All other loves form the subsets of the love we have for Allah(s.w.t).. When we love a creation of Allah(s.w.t), aren’t we displaying love for Allah(s.w.t)? By loving his wife, a husband demonstrates his love for Allah(s.w.t). How often do we talk about great love without realizing that no love should be greater than we have for Him. How many of us love Allah(s.w.t) enough to love people who may wish harm upon us, to love people who may have hurt us, to love people who have nothing but venomous words throw at us? Many of us are more than willing to put up our hands when asked whether we love the Creator. However, not many of us are able to display that love in our actions. I am guilty of that too. When we are wounded because of another, it is not easy to be selfless enough to say that we love the person who has been the cause of our pain. It is easier to overlook the fact that Allah(s.w.t) is the one within each person causing them to react the way they do. Takdir. If Allah(s.w.t) had not permitted, the person would not have acted in that manner. Allah(s.w.t) has meant for that something to happen, be it pleasant or not, and He is watching to see how we would react, whether we would react in his favor or turn our backs to his words and his omnipresence. But, it is so much easier to pen it down than to practice it. It is always easier to preach than to show it in actions. It is not about becoming a saint overnight, it is about putting in the effort, no matter how little it may be. Allah(s.w.t) is watching us try and he knows the effort that goes into it. He is watching us fight the jihad within ourselves when we try to not give in to past anger and hatred.
We love Him, together with all other of His creation, would that loving be the true meaning of living?
No comments:
Post a Comment