When the lights went out that evening, I barely noticed. The silence had already taken root in my apartment, long before the electricity did.
I had skipped Maghrib again. I don’t even know why anymore — each missed prayer came easier than the one before. I’d tell myself I was tired, or that I’d pray in ten minutes, or that Allah would understand. Then I'd scroll, scroll, scroll. Hours gone, heart empty.
The truth is, I didn’t know if I believed like I used to. Not in the way that made me cry during dua or whisper Allah’s name while walking alone. That part of me felt far away, like a photograph I once carried and misplaced.
It had started after I lost my job. Three years of giving it everything, of waking up before Fajr and making dua day after day — it still slipped through my fingers. I sent out resume after resume, and the only response I got was silence. As if I no longer existed. As if my prayers had joined that silence, unread, unanswered.
I had stopped asking. Stopped begging. Stopped weeping into sujood like I once did. Shame clung to me like smoke; I didn’t even know what to say to Allah anymore.
Then, last night, the power cut jolted me back into the present. The quiet wasn't just internal this time — it wrapped around me from outside. My phone went black, the humming fridge fell still, and the only thing I could hear was the ticking of the clock.
I pulled the curtain aside and leaned toward the window. Across the street, the buildings were dark too, but above them hung the clearest sky I’d seen in months. A sliver of the moon, stars faint but patient. A breeze slipped through the crack in my window, cool and clean. And then something strange happened.
My chest softened.
The quiet wasn’t mocking tonight. It didn’t feel like loneliness — it felt like permission. Like Allah hadn’t turned away, but was waiting, always waiting, for me to turn back.
I sat on the floor. No prayer mat nearby, just the carpet beneath me. I didn’t know where to start. My throat caught. Was I even allowed?
But my lips moved anyway.
“Ya Rabb...”
That’s all I managed at first. Ya Rabb — My Lord.
And it was enough to open the floodgates.
Tears came quietly, the way mercy sometimes does — not loud, not sudden, but slow and cleansing. I whispered the rest, apologies mostly. Simple things from a broken heart.
“I miss You. I don’t know how to come back... but I want to.”
In that moment, I remembered a verse from somewhere deep in my childhood. We’d memorized it in Islamic school years ago. I never understood its weight until now:
"O you who have believed, seek help through patience and prayer. Indeed, Allah is with the patient." (Surah Al-Baqarah, 2:153)
I hadn’t been patient. Not really. I gave up when the silence stretched too long. But maybe, just maybe, being patient didn’t mean never falling — maybe it meant getting back up, whispering a prayer even when it felt unsure, trusting the unseen even when nothing made sense.
The lights returned twenty minutes later. The fridge hummed. The phone blinked.
But I stayed there, in that small corner of light and stillness, head resting against the wall, eyes closed, heart open.
I didn’t have answers. I didn’t have a job. I didn’t even have confidence that my faith was as strong as before.
But I had one small thing again: intention. To return. To rebuild, slowly. To kneel again even with trembling knees, believing Allah’s mercy met me here — in my dark apartment, in my wordless prayer.
Because maybe mercy doesn’t always roar. Sometimes, it whispers.
And sometimes, that's enough.
---
Qur'an & Hadith References:
— Surah Al-Baqarah (2:153)
— Surah Al-Baqarah (2:186)
— Surah Az-Zumar (39:53)
— Surah Ash-Sharh (94:6)
— Sahih al-Bukhari (Volume 6, Book 60, Hadith 3)
When the lights went out that evening, I barely noticed. The silence had already taken root in my apartment, long before the electricity did.
I had skipped Maghrib again. I don’t even know why anymore — each missed prayer came easier than the one before. I’d tell myself I was tired, or that I’d pray in ten minutes, or that Allah would understand. Then I'd scroll, scroll, scroll. Hours gone, heart empty.
The truth is, I didn’t know if I believed like I used to. Not in the way that made me cry during dua or whisper Allah’s name while walking alone. That part of me felt far away, like a photograph I once carried and misplaced.
It had started after I lost my job. Three years of giving it everything, of waking up before Fajr and making dua day after day — it still slipped through my fingers. I sent out resume after resume, and the only response I got was silence. As if I no longer existed. As if my prayers had joined that silence, unread, unanswered.
I had stopped asking. Stopped begging. Stopped weeping into sujood like I once did. Shame clung to me like smoke; I didn’t even know what to say to Allah anymore.
Then, last night, the power cut jolted me back into the present. The quiet wasn't just internal this time — it wrapped around me from outside. My phone went black, the humming fridge fell still, and the only thing I could hear was the ticking of the clock.
I pulled the curtain aside and leaned toward the window. Across the street, the buildings were dark too, but above them hung the clearest sky I’d seen in months. A sliver of the moon, stars faint but patient. A breeze slipped through the crack in my window, cool and clean. And then something strange happened.
My chest softened.
The quiet wasn’t mocking tonight. It didn’t feel like loneliness — it felt like permission. Like Allah hadn’t turned away, but was waiting, always waiting, for me to turn back.
I sat on the floor. No prayer mat nearby, just the carpet beneath me. I didn’t know where to start. My throat caught. Was I even allowed?
But my lips moved anyway.
“Ya Rabb...”
That’s all I managed at first. Ya Rabb — My Lord.
And it was enough to open the floodgates.
Tears came quietly, the way mercy sometimes does — not loud, not sudden, but slow and cleansing. I whispered the rest, apologies mostly. Simple things from a broken heart.
“I miss You. I don’t know how to come back... but I want to.”
In that moment, I remembered a verse from somewhere deep in my childhood. We’d memorized it in Islamic school years ago. I never understood its weight until now:
"O you who have believed, seek help through patience and prayer. Indeed, Allah is with the patient." (Surah Al-Baqarah, 2:153)
I hadn’t been patient. Not really. I gave up when the silence stretched too long. But maybe, just maybe, being patient didn’t mean never falling — maybe it meant getting back up, whispering a prayer even when it felt unsure, trusting the unseen even when nothing made sense.
The lights returned twenty minutes later. The fridge hummed. The phone blinked.
But I stayed there, in that small corner of light and stillness, head resting against the wall, eyes closed, heart open.
I didn’t have answers. I didn’t have a job. I didn’t even have confidence that my faith was as strong as before.
But I had one small thing again: intention. To return. To rebuild, slowly. To kneel again even with trembling knees, believing Allah’s mercy met me here — in my dark apartment, in my wordless prayer.
Because maybe mercy doesn’t always roar. Sometimes, it whispers.
And sometimes, that's enough.
---
Qur'an & Hadith References:
— Surah Al-Baqarah (2:153)
— Surah Al-Baqarah (2:186)
— Surah Az-Zumar (39:53)
— Surah Ash-Sharh (94:6)
— Sahih al-Bukhari (Volume 6, Book 60, Hadith 3)
