sarakhan43
07-03-2006, 12:36 PM
It aches. It's perfect. The vision of ''teenager perfection'' stared back at her through the mirror. Beautiful with a continiously slimming waist, intelligence with a capped GPA and ''acceptably good'' SAT scores. The bathroom she stood in was her own. As with the bedroom big enough to be three bedrooms. Oh, and a walk in closet she was sure to brag about.
Yet, her innocence was lost. She saw the world with the same eyes that she had hated a year ago. Arrogance, pride, superiority. Her athiest friends bragged about going to Harvard and becoming National Merit scholars, "so you see ----, God is an invention of the poor to give them hope" the more blunt of her friends said.
They were no different from her other friends, the ones close to the ghettos of Detroit except that they were embittered and arrogant. They were empty of understanding themselves in relation to the greater world they lived in. They read literature and history, acing all the AP exams, but never reflecting about what those messages really meant. Not all, but ''generally speaking''. And so was she. They lived empty lives aspiring for perfection and the closer perfection, the hunger for even more
overwhelmed her. I need to win. I need a higher GPA. I need all As. I need As in APs. I need to exercise non-stop. I need to join more service clubs. All these activities, which could serve a higher purpose, served a base goal of perfection, of superiority, of ''an elegant perfect nature worth admiring and aspiring for''.
So she stared in her mirror, 5.a.m in the morning, another day with another dreaded darkened heart. It didn't seem like her heart knew how to beat and live and take in the joys it had once.
Once...she must have fallen from Allah SWT's good graces. She remembered her shared bedroom with her sister. Her good, but not exceptional, life. And yet that good life was exceptional. She remembered praying nafls, reading the Quraan every day, the sunnah, and being so close to the Prophets (peace be upon them) and their Companions that she could almost imagine them right there in her living room. She would read story about reverts...and hate them and loved them. She hated
ate them for thier special priviledge. And loved them for taking the right path in relation to those special priveledges. They got to suffer greater trials and prove thier love. And in that surge of jealousy and hope she would ask Allah SWT to test her maximum. Give her poverty, ugliness, disease, something to prove her love.
And so Allah SWT did...but she lost. HE gave her wealth, beauty and all of the materialistic benefits that could have served His cause. And she lost herself within it.
She looks at the glitter but as she touches it, she can never catch its shine, only dust and decay. The mirage of perfection stares at her in the mirror but the happiness associated with it is as distant as the reflection itself. And that which could have lightened her, as it did in the past and inshAllah will in the future, always lay in her reach...Allah SWT connected to the core, the depth of her heart.
Yet, her innocence was lost. She saw the world with the same eyes that she had hated a year ago. Arrogance, pride, superiority. Her athiest friends bragged about going to Harvard and becoming National Merit scholars, "so you see ----, God is an invention of the poor to give them hope" the more blunt of her friends said.
They were no different from her other friends, the ones close to the ghettos of Detroit except that they were embittered and arrogant. They were empty of understanding themselves in relation to the greater world they lived in. They read literature and history, acing all the AP exams, but never reflecting about what those messages really meant. Not all, but ''generally speaking''. And so was she. They lived empty lives aspiring for perfection and the closer perfection, the hunger for even more
overwhelmed her. I need to win. I need a higher GPA. I need all As. I need As in APs. I need to exercise non-stop. I need to join more service clubs. All these activities, which could serve a higher purpose, served a base goal of perfection, of superiority, of ''an elegant perfect nature worth admiring and aspiring for''.
So she stared in her mirror, 5.a.m in the morning, another day with another dreaded darkened heart. It didn't seem like her heart knew how to beat and live and take in the joys it had once.
Once...she must have fallen from Allah SWT's good graces. She remembered her shared bedroom with her sister. Her good, but not exceptional, life. And yet that good life was exceptional. She remembered praying nafls, reading the Quraan every day, the sunnah, and being so close to the Prophets (peace be upon them) and their Companions that she could almost imagine them right there in her living room. She would read story about reverts...and hate them and loved them. She hated
ate them for thier special priviledge. And loved them for taking the right path in relation to those special priveledges. They got to suffer greater trials and prove thier love. And in that surge of jealousy and hope she would ask Allah SWT to test her maximum. Give her poverty, ugliness, disease, something to prove her love.
And so Allah SWT did...but she lost. HE gave her wealth, beauty and all of the materialistic benefits that could have served His cause. And she lost herself within it.
She looks at the glitter but as she touches it, she can never catch its shine, only dust and decay. The mirage of perfection stares at her in the mirror but the happiness associated with it is as distant as the reflection itself. And that which could have lightened her, as it did in the past and inshAllah will in the future, always lay in her reach...Allah SWT connected to the core, the depth of her heart.