Sha`aban, this month of preparation for Ramadan, has been a sobering month for me personally, but brilliant in coaching terms. Allah has been sending me plenty of reminders of the Akhirat. Not only did I attend the Al-Kawthar course: The Final Rites , during which I had the chance to look again at the Islamic rulings related to the last days of life, Ghusl (ritual bathing), burial and inheritance, but my mother’s neighbour of 40 years also passed away yesterday. Inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi raji`un (We belong to Allah and to Him we shall return)!
T. was one of those people who always made you feel appreciated and valued and she'll be sorely missed by all those who knew her. She's actually the fourth person to have passed away in these four neighbouring houses since I came back to live here; two of them – one being my father – have died of cancer and the other two were neighbours in their 90s. And with each death I've been reminded of Allah, what He has asked of us, His Creation, and what will happen when I too die.
And that's why I say this month has been brilliant in coaching terms, as through these reminders I've been made to revisit visions of the Final Questioning and of the deeds being measured on the Scales. Allah constantly reminds of death in the Qur'an, but He reminds even more strongly when He takes those close to us back to Him. The fear of these days has renewed my determination to live my life in the best way I can and to strive to please Allah in all I do. As Dr. Omer said in his article, to succeed in life we need to have a vision, we need to set our aims high and we need to target our vision, so I add to these terrible visions my ultimate vision of entering Paradise and seeing Allah to give myself a high goal to aim for.
If you've had anything happen that has made you think of the nearness of death and it's consequences, the following exercise will help you to benefit from it. If not, please feel free to take the benefit from my reminders!
Do you have just a couple of minutes to take a break from reading this post?
If you do, can I ask you to just:
Stand up, close your eyes, and take a few slow deep breaths
Picture your final destination; where is it that you want to be? Picture it and imagine what it will look, taste, feel, and smell like
Take a good look around, who will be around you at that time that you know or are meeting for the first time?
Hold onto that image for a while and really absorb it and become part of it.
Then come back to today, and take a good look at your life and what you're doing with it. How close are you to being able to be rewarded with that ultimate destination you desire?
Take stock for a minute, then ask yourself: "What is one thing that I can do today to start to move closer towards achieving that goal?"
Every journey begins with a step, so what step are you going to take today to move towards achieving your goal? To start moving towards becoming the person who would be entitled to reach your ultimate destination? Aren't all deeds rewarded according to their intentions?
I know that Ramadan is just round the corner, but why wait until then? Who knows if you will even live that long? You can start preparing yourself from now. So what is it that you can do right now to start preparing to make this your best Ramadan ever? Whatever it is, don’t delay; just do it!
And keep in mind the words of the Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam): “If anyone believes in Allah and in His Messenger, and establishes Salah (Prayer), and fasts Ramadan, it is incumbent upon Allah to make them enter Paradise.“ (Sahih Al-Bukhari) May Allah let us all be among those people!
What are you going to work on? I'd love to hear. I'm going to take some more steps towards perfecting my Salah, improving my Qur'an reading, and reaching out to more people (and I'm setting myself specific targets for all of these things to reach by the end of Ramadan). How about you? Would you share below what you've decided to do too?
~Sister~ If you're ready to make important changes in your life, ask for a phone / Skype coaching consultation to discuss how we could work together on this
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Reply #2 on : Sun September 05, 2010, 00:57:32