I never thought the hum of a refrigerator could be so loud.
I sat on the kitchen floor, back against the cabinet, my knees pulled to my chest. The dishes were still in the sink from yesterday. The clock blinked 2:41 a.m. Everything was quiet, except for my mind — racing with unanswered emails, another job application that ended in silence, and the creeping fear that I was falling behind in life. I hadn’t told anyone, not even Amma. To her, I was still the reliable eldest, the one who “figured things out.”
I pressed my forehead to my knees and whispered, “Ya Allah… what do You want from me?”
The silence around me didn’t offer an answer. But somehow, even whispering His name held a strange weight — as if something unseen had shifted the air around me.
It’s been seven months since I lost my job. Seven months of rejections and “we went with another candidate,” bills stacking up like bricks on my chest. Friends tried to help, but their words didn’t touch the depth of my panic. I had been praying. Doing my salah on time. Making dua after every one. I begged with tears in sujood. But the silence?
It stretched longer than I thought I could endure.
That night, surrounded by the hum of old appliances and a life that felt paused, I remembered something my grandfather once said. He used to speak slow, his eyes always soft.
“Delays,” he told me once as we sat under the shade of our lemon tree, “are not a denial. Sometimes, they are Allah’s gentlest form of mercy.”
I didn’t understand then. But now, with everything stripped away — no job title, no income, no certainty — I knew what he meant.
There were days I didn’t want to get out of bed. Yet, with the twilight fajr creeping in through the blinds, I still rose. Brushed my teeth. Folded the prayer mat. Wiped away quiet tears. I thought that was weakness, but maybe it was sabr — not the distant, stoic kind but the trembling, breath-by-breath patience only Allah sees.
One morning, I opened the window right after fajr, needing fresh air like a drowning person needs the surface. The sky was still soft with dawn. A small bird — brown and unremarkable — landed on the railing, hopping once before darting into the air.
It was small, that bird. But its wings worked. It didn’t have a plan. It moved because Allah told it to. And He sustained it.
Something in me unclenched.
I started to shift — not into certainty, but into calm. I told myself I wasn’t behind. I was on a road Allah curved gently out of my view. I didn’t need to sprint. Just take today. Just get up. Just pray.
Work didn’t come quickly. But my heart softened in the waiting. I saw my little niece’s smile differently. I noticed the way Amma left chai near my door without saying a word. I saw mercy not in what changed, but in who I was becoming as I waited.
And then, almost casually, the call came. A part-time position. Modest. Remote. But steady and honest. Enough.
I stood in prayer that night and whispered my thanks, my voice cracking with tears I hadn’t known I was storing up.
Not because the job finally came — but because the silence had never been empty. It had been holding me, shaping me silently, like the dark soil that grows roots before the flower ever blooms.
It was never a delay.
It was love.
—
Relevant Qur’an Verses and Hadith:
"Indeed, Allah is with the patient."
— Surat Al-Baqarah (2:153)
“Be sure We shall test you with something of fear and hunger, some loss in goods or lives or the fruits (of your toil), but give glad tidings to those who patiently persevere.”
— Surat Al-Baqarah (2:155)
“No fatigue, nor disease, nor sorrow, nor sadness, nor hurt, nor distress befalls a Muslim, even if it were the prick he receives from a thorn — but that Allah expiates some of his sins for that.”
— Sahih al-Bukhari 5641; Sahih Muslim 2573
“And it may be that you dislike a thing which is good for you, and that you love a thing which is bad for you. Allah knows, and you do not know.”
— Surat Al-Baqarah (2:216)
The Prophet ﷺ said: "How amazing is the affair of the believer! For all his affairs are good — and this is only for the believer. If something good happens to him, he is grateful, and that is good for him. If something bad happens to him, he bears it with patience, and that is also good for him."
— Sahih Muslim 2999
I never thought the hum of a refrigerator could be so loud.
I sat on the kitchen floor, back against the cabinet, my knees pulled to my chest. The dishes were still in the sink from yesterday. The clock blinked 2:41 a.m. Everything was quiet, except for my mind — racing with unanswered emails, another job application that ended in silence, and the creeping fear that I was falling behind in life. I hadn’t told anyone, not even Amma. To her, I was still the reliable eldest, the one who “figured things out.”
I pressed my forehead to my knees and whispered, “Ya Allah… what do You want from me?”
The silence around me didn’t offer an answer. But somehow, even whispering His name held a strange weight — as if something unseen had shifted the air around me.
It’s been seven months since I lost my job. Seven months of rejections and “we went with another candidate,” bills stacking up like bricks on my chest. Friends tried to help, but their words didn’t touch the depth of my panic. I had been praying. Doing my salah on time. Making dua after every one. I begged with tears in sujood. But the silence?
It stretched longer than I thought I could endure.
That night, surrounded by the hum of old appliances and a life that felt paused, I remembered something my grandfather once said. He used to speak slow, his eyes always soft.
“Delays,” he told me once as we sat under the shade of our lemon tree, “are not a denial. Sometimes, they are Allah’s gentlest form of mercy.”
I didn’t understand then. But now, with everything stripped away — no job title, no income, no certainty — I knew what he meant.
There were days I didn’t want to get out of bed. Yet, with the twilight fajr creeping in through the blinds, I still rose. Brushed my teeth. Folded the prayer mat. Wiped away quiet tears. I thought that was weakness, but maybe it was sabr — not the distant, stoic kind but the trembling, breath-by-breath patience only Allah sees.
One morning, I opened the window right after fajr, needing fresh air like a drowning person needs the surface. The sky was still soft with dawn. A small bird — brown and unremarkable — landed on the railing, hopping once before darting into the air.
It was small, that bird. But its wings worked. It didn’t have a plan. It moved because Allah told it to. And He sustained it.
Something in me unclenched.
I started to shift — not into certainty, but into calm. I told myself I wasn’t behind. I was on a road Allah curved gently out of my view. I didn’t need to sprint. Just take today. Just get up. Just pray.
Work didn’t come quickly. But my heart softened in the waiting. I saw my little niece’s smile differently. I noticed the way Amma left chai near my door without saying a word. I saw mercy not in what changed, but in who I was becoming as I waited.
And then, almost casually, the call came. A part-time position. Modest. Remote. But steady and honest. Enough.
I stood in prayer that night and whispered my thanks, my voice cracking with tears I hadn’t known I was storing up.
Not because the job finally came — but because the silence had never been empty. It had been holding me, shaping me silently, like the dark soil that grows roots before the flower ever blooms.
It was never a delay.
It was love.
—
Relevant Qur’an Verses and Hadith:
"Indeed, Allah is with the patient."
— Surat Al-Baqarah (2:153)
“Be sure We shall test you with something of fear and hunger, some loss in goods or lives or the fruits (of your toil), but give glad tidings to those who patiently persevere.”
— Surat Al-Baqarah (2:155)
“No fatigue, nor disease, nor sorrow, nor sadness, nor hurt, nor distress befalls a Muslim, even if it were the prick he receives from a thorn — but that Allah expiates some of his sins for that.”
— Sahih al-Bukhari 5641; Sahih Muslim 2573
“And it may be that you dislike a thing which is good for you, and that you love a thing which is bad for you. Allah knows, and you do not know.”
— Surat Al-Baqarah (2:216)
The Prophet ﷺ said: "How amazing is the affair of the believer! For all his affairs are good — and this is only for the believer. If something good happens to him, he is grateful, and that is good for him. If something bad happens to him, he bears it with patience, and that is also good for him."
— Sahih Muslim 2999
