WADAH 2013

Wadah Pendidik! Edisi 1 2013
But how do we avoid true impoverishment of
the soul? No one likes to fall. And few people
would ever choose to drown. But in struggling
through the ocean of this life, sometimes it’s so
hard not to let the world in. Sometimes the ocean
does enter us. The dunya does seep into our hearts.
And like the water that breaks the boat, when
dunya enters, it shatters our heart. It shatters the
boat. If you allow dunya to own your heart, you will
sink down to the depth 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 enters it.
But, this dark place is not the end. Remember
that the darkness of night precedes the dawn. And
as long as your heart still beats, this is not the
death of it. You don’t have to die here. Sometimes,
the ocean floor is only a stop in the journey. And it
is when you are at this lowest point, that you are
faced with a choice. You can stay there at the
bottom, until you drown. Or you can gather pearls
and rise back up—stronger from the swim, and
richer from the jewels.
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.
Seek God to bring you back up, for when He
does, He will rebuild your ship. The heart that you
thought was forever damaged will be mended.
What was shattered will be whole again. Know
that only He can do this. Seek Him. And when He
saves you, beg forgiveness for the fall, feel remorse
over it—but not despair.
There is a powerful and amazing thing about
tawbah (repentance) and turning back to God. We
are told that it is a polish for the heart. What’s
amazing about a polish is that it doesn’t just clean.
It makes the object that it polished even shiner
than before it got dirty. If you come back to God,
seek His forgiveness, and refocus your life and
heart on Him, you have the potential to be even
richer than if you’d never fallen at all. Sometimes
falling and coming back up gives you wisdom and
humility that you may never otherwise have had.
But how do we fill our hearts with the true
richness? How do we escape the constant
bombardment from every direction commanding
us to worship other things? How do we escape the
true poverty of allowing any competitor into our
hearts?
To escape the true poverty, we must be
overflowing in our love for God. Our strongest love
should be for God. 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 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. Does not the
polish of tawbah remake the heart even more
beautiful than it was? Remove the veil you have
sewn with your sins. Remove the veil between you
and Life, between you and Freedom, between you
and Light…between you and God. Remove the veil
and rise up. Come back to yourself before it’s too
late.
! Muka Surat 42