Fear and hope in sickness and in health

Bismillah.

Fear and hope are like two wings. We can't fly with just one wing can we? Fear is khauf and hope is raja'. So we picked up a couple of Arabic terms along the way.

We learn from experience and nothing can substitute experience. And we learn from tasting. Knowing theories alone can only take us so far. 

I got knocked out quite badly on Sunday and Monday due to sickness and seriously thought I'd never regain my mental strength to write again. He made me realize the obvious - that thinking and writing involve a complex working of the brain which I have taken for granted. That it is He who makes the brain work, recollecting data and putting facts together Subhanallah. 

It's always a humbling experience to be feeling helpless, to be forced into a helpless situation. But not hopeless, no. We may be fearful to the max but as a believer we must always be hopeful that after the pain comes cure, even if one is faced with a cure-less sickness i.e. death, there is still hope beyond it. Ah...that Kelly Clarkson song - what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. Oh well, if it kills you, it makes you go eternal.  

Still, my experience the past few days, has made me humble, that each new post I paste on this virtual sounding board could be the last and I will never know which one will be the last! Until then, we'll have to stand up for life and garner more fears and hopes along the way. Only then can we live to be a little wiser and die a little wiser too.

Praise be to Allah for giving us another day, for giving us another healthy day.

And this quote makes me ponder...

"How vain it is to sit down to write, when you have not stood up to live."
- Henry David Thoreau
in case you can't read the doctor's handwriting : )