Why me?
I don't understand why Allah SWT chose me for Islam. But I don't have to.
I posted some thoughts to QuranReflect yesterday. Unfortunately, images aren’t allowed as they are here. So I’m sharing those thoughts here as well, with a frog friend for company.
Either my browser or Substack itself can’t handle right-to-left text direction, so I’ve included links to the Arabic for the ayat below. All translations are from the M.A.S. Abdel Haleem translation.
His Lord said to him, ‘Devote yourself to Me.’ Abraham replied, ‘I devote myself to the Lord of the Universe,’ and commanded his sons to do the same, as did Jacob: ‘My sons, God has chosen [your] religion for you, so make sure you devote yourselves to Him, to your dying moment.’
‘[Our life] takes its colour from God, and who gives a better colour than God? It is Him we worship.’
We shall certainly test you with fear and hunger, and loss of property, lives, and crops. But [Prophet], give good news to those who are steadfast, those who say, when afflicted with a calamity, ‘We belong to God and to Him we shall return.’
Spring has arrived in southern Spain where I live, as it has for all of the northern hemisphere. Down at the river, male frogs are chirping in search of mates, and some of the trees are dropping cottony-soft fibers that look like snow. I wish I could share pictures here. Allah SWT is bringing forth signs of new life everywhere I look.
I'm 59 years old, a late-life revert. And I will be the first to say that, "on paper," no one could probably have guessed that I would eventually turn to Islam. I am, to put it mildly, not the best of creation. Most of my life was spent in gratification of whims and pursuit of ego goals, with little attention paid to matters of the spirit or my family's needs. I was the very model of a modern Western woman. And I still get pulled into less-than-ideal activities. Eating too much? Yep, although less so these days. Watching too much YouTube? At times.
But it doesn't seem to matter, in Islam, that I don't appear to be very well suited to any kind of life with God as the center. Allah SWT has in fact chosen my religion for me just as Surah al-Baqarah 132 describes.
Not only that, but He takes me deeper and deeper each day. The M.A.S. Abdel Haleem English translation of Surah al-Baqarah uses the imagery of "color" in Surah al-Baqarah 138 to describe how Allah SWT changes our lives: "[Our life] takes its colour from God, and who gives a better colour than God? It is Him we worship." The deen colors my life more and more as time goes on. Alhamdulillah.
And of course, walking through the spring forest, I'm reminded that all of the activity and glory I see before me will wither and die as winter approaches. My time here in this earthly life is finite. As Surah al-Baqarah 156 reminds us, I will be returned to my God just as all of creation will be. I am more and more conscious of spending time wisely, not "killing time" as pastimes and such are aptly described.
Again, Alhamdulillah. I am incapable of doing any of this on my own.
The Sixth Pillar of Faith, Qadr.
“our dispositions are not voluntary in the same sense that our actions are,” Aristotle, Book III of the Nichomachean Ethics.