A Twist of Fate ✔

Ch. 24

What impoverishes and kills the heart? It is allowing the heart to love anything as it should only love God. See, the heart was created with a very particular nature and for a very particular purpose. When you fail to use any created thing for the purpose for which it was created for, it breaks. It drowns. It starves. It dies. **

Laila sat in her room, legs crossed over her prayer mat, headphones secured in her ears. She listened to the woman's soothing voice, mouthing along with the words she grew to memorize by heart. It was this lecture that threw her a lifeline amidst the darkest nights of her life. When Hamza left, disappearing without a trace.

The heart was created by and for God. The heart was created to know and love God. The heart was created to be given to God. To be filled with God. The heart that is given to or filled by any other thing, suffers the most painful impoverishment and death. **

It felt like that night on the beach was but a distant nightmare, or something that happened years ago. The truth was it had only been a little over two months. Laila spent every single day in the deepest pits of despair. 1460 hours, utterly lost. She isolated herself from her parents and friends, wallowing in self-loathing and grief alone. It seemed fit to subject that punishment onto herself. She deserved it, she was certain of that. 

But the misery quickly morphed into shame. She was ashamed of not only what she had done, but how she allowed it to affect her. She wasn't as strong as she thought. She let everyone down, including her own religious values. How could she call herself a Muslim? How could she perform wudhu when she could still feel his dirty hands on her skin? How could she stand in front of Allah, when her tongue was still burning bitter?

Thus, she decided not to. She convinced herself that Allah wouldn't want her prayers anyway. That she had been given so many chances, too many chances, it would be greedy to ask for more. She stopped praying. There used to be a light at the end of the tunnel, but she squashed it with her own two hands. So, she welcomed the well-deserved darkness, succumbing into the comfort of hopelessness. Away from her Lord, her only salvation. 

The human heart is like a boat in the ocean of dunya. The boat that allows the oceans water to enter breaks and then drowns. The human heart that allows this dunya to enter, breaks and drowns. And becomes owned. Owned by this life. **

The heart that is owned by this life is a prisoner of the worst kind. The heart that is owned by any other master, than the Master of masters, is the weakest of all slaves. That is true oppression. True death. True poverty. **

Then exactly a week ago, she saw herself for the first time. It was as if someone had punched her in the gut. She had just stepped out of the shower and found herself eyeing the full-length mirror in the corner of her room. She had thrown a sheet over it the night Abdullah brought her home, and never removed it since. But for some reason, that fateful day, her fingers were itching to remove the veil even though the thought of what awaited her was frightening.

She eventually got up, the towel still wrapped around her chest. She stood in front of the vertical rectangle, taking a deep breath. On her exhale, she grabbed the fabric and pulled it down. There was a whoosh sound as dust clouds floated up. And then she saw her reflection.

When you're most broken, where do you go? When you're afraid, where do you hide? When you need, who do you ask? What do you fear most? What do you stay up at night worrying about? Who, what, makes you cry most? What do you think about most? **

What are you afraid of most? Just the thought of losing what thing causes you so much anxiety that you feel it physically? **

When you're given a choice, what do you do? **

She almost didn't recognize herself. Her face was so hollow... so empty. Dark shadows encircled eyes that were turned down, lifelessly hanging. Her shoulder blades were too sharp, bluntly protruding out of her body. Her eyes trailed along them to her connecting collarbones and that was when she saw the bruises. They were so light, almost unnoticeable. But she saw them. Swirls and patches of blue and purple decorated her neck like a fading tattoo. And for the first time, she felt something other than sadness.

Anger.

As human beings we enslave ourselves to different things. **

Some of us have enslaved our hearts to other people. **

She allowed herself to be a victim for far too long. She allowed him to imprison her in his moment even long after it ended. She constantly continued to give him the upper hand, allowing him to control her, forcing her down to her knees against the ghost of his memory. Without realizing, she took a piece of him and kept it. And it ate at her, slowing destroying parts of her she desperately needed.

No one likes to fall. And few people would ever choose to drown. But in struggling through the ocean of this life, sometimes it's so hard not to let the world in. Sometimes the ocean does enter us. The dunya does seep into our hearts. And like the water that breaks the boat, when dunya enters, it shatters our heart. It shatters the boat. **

If you allow dunya to own your heart, you will sink down to the depth of the sea. And you may feel as though you are at your lowest point. Entrapped by your sins and the love of this life, you may feel broken. Surrounded by darkness. That's the amazing thing about the floor of the ocean. No light enters it. **

She should've thrown him away a long time ago.

She couldn't go back in time. She couldn't change what happened. Her past was out of her control. He stole that from her, the comfort and safety her parents cocooned her in. Without permission. Without mercy. Without a conscience. Murdering her spirit, strangling her soul. Forcing her into a dark corner where all she did was remember. 

She wished she could lose her memory, all over again. 

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A/N: Please vote, my lovelies ❤

** -> transcript from a speech given by Yasmin Mogahed. The italics are her words, not mine! You can find the full lecture here: http://www.yasminmogahed.com/category/lectures/audio-lectures/