Episode 28 - Living with the new situation

The father fell ill with a disease that gradually weakens him... The doctor informed the family that the disease is chronic and that treatments only slow down the deterioration. The children refused this truth! They went to a second and third doctor, conducted advanced tests, asked their cousin in Canada to send a new medicine, tried natural treatments, experimented with herbs... But their father deteriorates month after month.

They cried when their father stumbled for the first time, a warning of the beginning of the loss of balance. Tears welled up in their eyes when he failed for the first time to lift a morsel to his mouth. Their faces darkened with sorrow when he began to need help with his needs...

In all these stations, they would say: (This is not the father we knew... We want the father we knew! We want the strong, active father... He used to cover our mistakes... He was the one who cuddled us and fed us with his hand at the table... He was and was... Our father did not age after... He is still in his fifties... Our uncles who are older than him in age are in good health and well-being. Perhaps it is a summer cloud that will clear... Perhaps all the doctors are wrong in the diagnosis... We want the father he was).

The father read all of this in the eyes of his children and the expressions on their faces, and he grieved for their grief... And to comfort himself about his fate and not increase his worry, he began to avoid looking at their faces altogether! He could no longer bear to see the pity mixed with the false hope... Years have passed, and the children are still butting their heads against the rock of reality, and the flower of their hearts withers as they see their father wither.

We tire ourselves when we refuse a new reality that will continue; when we refuse to coexist with this reality, when we insist that we do not want any "losses" in this worldly life!

The children of this sick man refused the fact that they had been afflicted with their beloved father's chronic illness. They took all material means, and this is praiseworthy... But they began to make mistakes when it became clear that their father would not return to what he was according to the usual laws, so they refused this bitter truth, did not coexist with it, and did not accept it... They tired themselves and tired their father with them!

When we are afflicted with a trial, there is no harm in striving in every direction permitted by Allah, knocking on every possible door, and in our hearts the hope of removing this trial... But this diligent effort should be temporary and phased... If it becomes clear that this trial is a fixed, continuous fate that Allah has chosen for us, then it is wise to redirect our efforts from defending this trial to coexisting with it.

Many will reject this speech as a call to surrender to the trial... Come, O beloved, let us discuss the matter calmly: which is better?! That the children of this afflicted man say to their father: (Be patient, O father... Perhaps this disease of yours will be a cause for entering Paradise. What does it matter to you if you will forget all the hardships of this world with a dip in Paradise?! Then we are your children, parts of you; we are your hands and feet, your hearing and sight... All you have to do now is rest and command us as you wish so that we may serve you with our eyes and earn the reward of your righteousness. We ask Allah that your disease be a sign of Allah's love for you, for the reward is great with the greatness of the trial, and Allah the Almighty, if He loves a people, He afflicts them).

Is this better, or do they tickle their father's emotions with words of hope for recovery, so that the poor man's morale rises and his spirit is temporarily invigorated, then it becomes clear to him over time that it is a false, illusory hope, so the optimism fades and despair grows and the spirit deteriorates?

Which is better? That the children focus their efforts on adapting their father's life according to the disease by scheduling their times to share in serving him and providing the necessary tools for his personal daily needs according to his illness, and integrating him in activities that suit his illness and fill his time... Or that they leave everything as it is because their father "will return as he was" and take their father to the sixth and seventh doctor and hang his heart on inaccurate stories they heard about a man who was cured of the same disease with a herb by the healer so-and-so... And every time the poor man goes with them with a new hope and returns with a relapse.

Someone will say: (Why not combine both: hope and coexistence?)... Reality testifies that one of these two choices must be the original and the other the exception, and the soul cannot combine the peak of hope for the removal of the trial and coexisting with it efficiently and being patient with it. One of them must occupy a larger space in thought and effort.

In our example, keeping the hope of recovery at its peak means implicitly that (this is not the situation we want for our father), and this preoccupation undermines patience and makes coexistence difficult and misses opportunities for the fruitful investment of time and effort.

We advise those who are afflicted with what is usually long-term to consider the new situation as the original, and the return to what it was before the affliction as an exception. This is more likely to make the afflicted person notice new joys in his life that distract him from the feeling of the loss of the blessing he has lost... So he starts anew in life with what is available to him. If Allah decrees the unusual and reveals this affliction, it will be an addition and a good thing to the good. But if the afflicted assumes that the original is the removal of this affliction, he will always feel a lack in his life and a void in his heart, and this feeling will distract him from noticing the other joys in his life, and his speech and thinking will be focused on the affliction, revolving in a vicious circle of anxiety... And this may lead him to despise Allah's blessing upon him!

But if you coexist, you will see joys in the very thing you are afflicted with, so the children of this man we mentioned in the example will turn their focus from the distress of rejecting the reality of the chronic disease to the joy of their success in what they achieve in easing their father's burden and removing obstacles for him and earning the reward for all of that... And he will also be pleased with what Allah has eased for him and replaced with good from these children who see their joy and the goodness of their hearts.

Someone will say: But I know examples of people whose habits were broken! So-and-so was given up on by the doctors for recovery and was cured... It may happen to me as it happened to him. You have said it: "It may happen"... And it may not happen! So accustom yourself, O brother and sister, to what is most likely to happen, and seek other joys in your life, the first and greatest of which is what you will not be deprived of if you ask for it sincerely: the mercy of Allah the Almighty {Say, by the grace of Allah and His mercy; with that let them rejoice. It is better than what they amass} [Yunus: 58]... Then your heart will be filled with intimacy with Allah the Almighty and satisfaction with His decree and reliance upon Him and good opinion of Him...

And keep with all of this... A candle of hope lit...