Awe

This morning, I was woken by the most intense thunderstorm I have ever experienced. The thunder cracked through the sky with such force that it filled my heart with fear.

That fear surprised me.

I am not someone who has always been afraid of storms. As a child, my mother would wake me up in the middle of the night so we could stand at the window and watch thunderstorms together. Later in life, I became the kind of person who would chase storms rather than run from them. Thunder and lightning fascinated me. I admired their beauty, their power, and their unpredictability.

Yet this morning was different.

For a long time now, I have been struggling with my iman. Questions have followed questions, and doubts have followed doubts. My connection to God has felt distant. I have not been waking for Fajr for a very long time. Somewhere along the way, I became caught between faith and uncertainty.

Then came the storm.

As the thunder rolled overhead and shook the world around me, I was reminded of the words:

“And the thunder glorifies His praise, and the angels out of fear of Him. And He sends the thunderbolts and strikes with them whom He wills, while they dispute concerning Allah; and He is tremendous in might.”

In that moment, the storm felt like more than weather. It felt like a reminder.

A reminder that these immense forces of nature, which seem so powerful to us, are themselves under God’s command. A reminder that creation itself points back to its Creator. A reminder that while the signs of God surround us, some of us continue to argue, question, doubt, and dispute.

I have been one of those people.

And yet, standing in the presence of that thunder, feeling a fear I had never felt before, I was reminded of something I had forgotten: awe.

Not blind certainty. Not the absence of questions. But awe.

The kind of awe that makes a person feel small beneath a sky that belongs to God.

The kind of awe that reminds you that faith is not only found in answers, but sometimes in being confronted by something greater than yourself.

I do not know where this journey will take me. I do not know which questions will be answered and which will remain. But I know that I will never forget that storm, or the feeling that accompanied it.

For a brief moment, amidst the thunder and lightning, my heart remembered.