I am not like them but I want to please Him

I write about wanting to be like them. I make dua that I want to be like them. I secretly wish I was like them. But I’m not like them.

I am not like the mothers of pious men and women. I am not like the mothers who brought up thinkers, scholars and the sahaba. I’m me, a lazy, procrastinating 30 something year old, desperately wanting the Quran to be the spring of not only my life but of my children’s too. But it seems like an impossible task. Everything does!

Every day seems overwhelming with chores, endless chores. Every day seems one step away from those super goals rather than big steps towards them.

I say and write that those mothers made use of tahajjud, and then can’t remember when I last awoke to ask from Allah under the silent, deep darkness. I talk about the mothers who sacrificed all for their children to learn Quran, yet I complain about having to drive mine around for it or get annoyed when my child isn’t grasping a certain verse quick enough. I become complacent and allow my goals to become something impossible to reach.

I am definitely not like them. But I still want to be. And maybe, just maybe, that want could get me somewhere. Maybe the want is what I need, to have to establish something within my home, a life which will reflect that which I desire for us now but also become something that pleases Him. Maybe my success will be in the want and struggle rather than in the achievement. Maybe without the want, I will be more lost than I am now.

I am not like them, but I still want to be like them. I still want to have specks of their Iman, their character and their determination. And maybe the specks are enough for me, may be they are my strength, maybe that is what I should hold onto most; my dua, my want, my desire to be like people who loved Allah.

In knowing, loving and obeying Allah lies strength that may not show immediate results but weighs much more than failures. A reminder we all need as parents, as mothers we need to know that our every day struggles are the jigsaw pieces that will help build that home in Jannah. May our duas be the strong roots that grow in servitude to Him. As we work to establish the love of Him in our homes, the struggling steps we take will help put the foundations down for palaces in Jannah, bi’idhnillah.

I am not like them but I will work to please Him, and may He accept it from me because He knows the worth of every small and every big deed.

– Certainly, your efforts and deeds are diverse
As for him who gives (in charity) and keeps his duty to Allah and fears Him,
And believes in Al-Husna.
We will make smooth for him the path of ease (goodness).- 
(92:4-7)