The Week Before Ramadan

This week did not ask for permission. It arrived like wind through an open door —and by the time I realized what was happening,everything that was not anchored had been moved.

It has been a humbling week. A stripping week. A week of letting go with hands that did not want to open —and opening them anyway.

There have been personal changes,spiritual changes,physical changes. Rooms feel different.Silences feel different. Even my own reflection feels different.

It has been a clearing.

Not gentle spring cleaning —but the kind that empties shelves,removes what once felt essential, and leaves you standing in a space that echoes.

There has been guilt. Hurt. Resentment. The ache of being misunderstood. The sting of being accused. The sorrow of releasing what once felt woven into my daily life. There has been the kind of grief that doesn’t shout — but hums beneath everything.

And yet…

There has also been grounding. A coming back down to earth.

A realization that sometimes we are uprooted —not because we are being punished, but because we have outgrown the soil we were in. Sometimes we must be replanted in terrain we did not choose so that our roots can deepen in ways we never would have allowed.

This week I questioned everything.

Was this my fault? Was this consequence? Was this mercy in disguise? Was this the will of Allah?

And somewhere in the middle of the questioning,

I found myself returning — almost overnight —back to my faith with a force that startled me. Not dramatically. Not performatively. But deeply.

The Qur’an has not been a book on a shelf this week. It has been the rope of Allah — something to hold when the ground felt uncertain. In its words I felt reminded that Allah is gentle and subtle with His servants, providing in ways we do not always recognize at first (42:19). What I first experienced as loss began to feel like quiet rearrangement — provision disguised as subtraction.

I was reminded too that even those closest to revelation navigated human complexity — trust, discretion, misunderstanding — and that difficulty does not mean abandonment (66:3). Trial does not mean rejection.

And when I reached the words, “So remind — you are only a reminder. You are not over them a controller” (88:21–22), something inside me unclenched.

I am not in control of hearts. I am not in control of outcomes. I am responsible for my intention, my sincerity, my standing before Allah.

Nothing more. And that has brought a strange, steady peace.

Alhamdulillah.

Peace has become obvious. Not loud — but obvious.

In my home. In my breath. In the faces of those around me. In the quiet moments where I would once have spiraled.

Even my neshab — my small discipline, my return to prayer — has become an anchor. A rhythm. A steady reminder that I am held even when everything feels like it is shifting.

This week has brought me back down to reality — not the harsh kind, but the honest kind. The kind where you realize you cannot carry everything. The kind where you accept that some doors close because they must. The kind where forgiveness becomes lighter than resentment.

It is almost Ramadan. And instead of entering it cluttered, I am entering it emptied.

Not empty of feeling —but empty of illusion.

There is grief here. There is tenderness. There is acceptance forming where resistance used to live. And over all of it rests this truth that now feels written across my entire week:

Perhaps you dislike something and it is good for you, and perhaps you love something and it is bad for you. And Allah knows, while you do not know. (2:216)

Allah knows. Even when I do not. Especially when I do not. And so I step toward Ramadan humbled, replanted, cleared out, and quietly at peace.

Alhamdulillah.