The rows of my prayer rug had started to blur.
It was one of those dusty, muted days when even the sunlight didn’t want to push through my bedroom window. I sat there after Fajr, knees tucked in, palms open — empty. I wasn’t crying. I wasn’t angry. Just... still. Like the silence you hear after a sandstorm ends but before anything starts to regrow.
Maybe I was tired of trying. Tired of stepping forward, only to fall back into the same mistakes. I’d missed too many prayers last week. Ignored too many opportunities to turn back to Him. My chest carried the weight of guilt heavy and thick like wet wool. I kept slipping, telling myself I’d do better, be better — and then I wouldn’t. My heart? It felt like a cracked clay pot. Not broken enough to toss, but hollow, unable to hold the water of faith for too long.
I leaned my forehead against the edge of the rug again.
"Ya Allah," I whispered, unsure if I meant it out of devotion or desperation. "I don’t even know where to start anymore."
The silence didn’t answer. But something shifted.
Somewhere outside, a bird called out. Just one — maybe a sparrow or a myna. Its chirp was thin, shaky, like it had just woken up from a hard night. I lifted my head.
Through the window, the softest glow of morning crept in. Not bold. Just there.
Something in me cracked. Not in the breaking sense. But quietly — an opening.
I remembered a verse. Not one I read recently, but one that had been there since Sunday classes with my father: “Indeed, Allah loves those who constantly repent and loves those who purify themselves.” (Surah Al-Baqarah 2:222)
Loves.
Not tolerates.
Not merely forgives.
Loves.
Why would Allah love someone like me? Someone who can't even go seven days without slipping into old habits, who carries a heart that sways like grass in the wind?
But the verse said tattaabeen — “those who constantly return.” Not “those who never fail,” but those who keep coming back, even barefoot and bruised, heart in shreds, eyes dry from too much weeping.
That bird outside — it sang again. A little louder this time.
I didn’t open another surah. I didn’t touch my prayer beads. I just closed my eyes, and spoke to Allah the way I could.
"I'm still here," I said. It was all I had.
And somehow, I believed it was enough.
I didn’t get up feeling entirely healed. But I did rise. The guilt didn’t evaporate, but a thread of hope had stitched itself into it. Like maybe I didn’t have to be unbreakable to be beloved. Maybe trying — even when tired — was seen by Allah in a way others couldn’t see.
There were no grand signs. No sudden bursts of light. Just a fragile peace that whispered back into me like dawn light through blinds.
Later that morning, I walked to the masjid nearby. Not to prove anything. Not to erase what I’d done.
But to return.
Again.
—
Qur’an & Hadith References:
The rows of my prayer rug had started to blur.
It was one of those dusty, muted days when even the sunlight didn’t want to push through my bedroom window. I sat there after Fajr, knees tucked in, palms open — empty. I wasn’t crying. I wasn’t angry. Just... still. Like the silence you hear after a sandstorm ends but before anything starts to regrow.
Maybe I was tired of trying. Tired of stepping forward, only to fall back into the same mistakes. I’d missed too many prayers last week. Ignored too many opportunities to turn back to Him. My chest carried the weight of guilt heavy and thick like wet wool. I kept slipping, telling myself I’d do better, be better — and then I wouldn’t. My heart? It felt like a cracked clay pot. Not broken enough to toss, but hollow, unable to hold the water of faith for too long.
I leaned my forehead against the edge of the rug again.
"Ya Allah," I whispered, unsure if I meant it out of devotion or desperation. "I don’t even know where to start anymore."
The silence didn’t answer. But something shifted.
Somewhere outside, a bird called out. Just one — maybe a sparrow or a myna. Its chirp was thin, shaky, like it had just woken up from a hard night. I lifted my head.
Through the window, the softest glow of morning crept in. Not bold. Just there.
Something in me cracked. Not in the breaking sense. But quietly — an opening.
I remembered a verse. Not one I read recently, but one that had been there since Sunday classes with my father: “Indeed, Allah loves those who constantly repent and loves those who purify themselves.” (Surah Al-Baqarah 2:222)
Loves.
Not tolerates.
Not merely forgives.
Loves.
Why would Allah love someone like me? Someone who can't even go seven days without slipping into old habits, who carries a heart that sways like grass in the wind?
But the verse said tattaabeen — “those who constantly return.” Not “those who never fail,” but those who keep coming back, even barefoot and bruised, heart in shreds, eyes dry from too much weeping.
That bird outside — it sang again. A little louder this time.
I didn’t open another surah. I didn’t touch my prayer beads. I just closed my eyes, and spoke to Allah the way I could.
"I'm still here," I said. It was all I had.
And somehow, I believed it was enough.
I didn’t get up feeling entirely healed. But I did rise. The guilt didn’t evaporate, but a thread of hope had stitched itself into it. Like maybe I didn’t have to be unbreakable to be beloved. Maybe trying — even when tired — was seen by Allah in a way others couldn’t see.
There were no grand signs. No sudden bursts of light. Just a fragile peace that whispered back into me like dawn light through blinds.
Later that morning, I walked to the masjid nearby. Not to prove anything. Not to erase what I’d done.
But to return.
Again.
—
Qur’an & Hadith References:
