I didn’t expect to cry in the bread aisle.
But there I was — hands shaking, a bag of flour in my basket, and my youngest tugging at my jilbab asking if we could get the chocolate cereal this time — when the weight of these past months caught up with me. Lentils, rice, diapers, always calculating… and yet always short.
I turned my face so no one would see. I blinked hard, cleared my throat, pretended to read the label on a can of chickpeas.
Allah, I whispered inside, what am I doing wrong?
Back home, after the supermarket and the long walk in the heat (because the bus fare now felt like a luxury), I found a note tucked inside the pages of my old Qur’an. A simple line in my husband’s handwriting. From a time before he left to find work abroad.
“Sabr isn’t silence. It’s trusting even when nothing is changing.”
My eyes filled again — not the hot frustrated tears from earlier, but slow ones. The kind that come when words land deep.
I remembered when he wrote it. It was just days after we lost our second baby. He sat beside me in the hospital, my hand cold in his, and said nothing. Just that line, later, on a scrap of paper folded into my prayer mat.
Now, here I was. Still waiting. Still hoping. Still counting every coin and every slice of bread.
Night came. I put the children to sleep, wiped the kitchen down clean though there wasn’t much dinner to clean up after. My knees hit the prayer rug heavier than usual. Fajr used to be the hardest prayer — waking while the sky was still dark, a quiet house, aching limbs. But now I cling to it, because it’s the only time I can hear my own breath.
I sat, head bowed, after two rak’ahs, fingers tracing the last part of Surah Al-Baqarah as if the letters themselves might carry me.
“Allah does not burden a soul beyond that it can bear…”
But some burdens stretch you until you don’t know what form you are anymore.
A distant thunder rumbled. The kind that promised rain. And then, just like that, the first drop struck the window. Then another. And within minutes, the sound of rain filled the whole room — thick, cool, kind.
I opened the window. My breath caught.
It had been weeks since the rain came. The street looked washed, shimmering. The dusty leaves danced as the water kissed them. I don’t know why, but it felt like the sky had waited — just like me — to be full enough to pour.
I whispered a dua — a prayer from deep inside — without words. Only tears. Only breath.
In that moment, I didn't know if things would get better. My husband was still gone. The bills were still stacked. The cereal shelf was still missing the chocolate one.
But the rain fell. And my children were safe in their beds. And I was still here, with my forehead to the ground, calling on the One who never turned me away.
And that was enough. For now.
That was hope.
That was sabr — not loud, not strong, not perfect. Just breathing, just waiting, just whispering His name into the dark.
And somehow, even when nothing had changed — something inside me had.
I closed the window. Let the rain sing us both to sleep.
Relevant Qur’an Verses and Hadith
(Surah Ar-Rum, 30:60)
(Surah At-Talaq, 65:2–3)
(Surah Ash-Sharh, 94:6–7)
(Surah Al-Baqarah, 2:286)
(Muslim, Hadith 2999)
I didn’t expect to cry in the bread aisle.
But there I was — hands shaking, a bag of flour in my basket, and my youngest tugging at my jilbab asking if we could get the chocolate cereal this time — when the weight of these past months caught up with me. Lentils, rice, diapers, always calculating… and yet always short.
I turned my face so no one would see. I blinked hard, cleared my throat, pretended to read the label on a can of chickpeas.
Allah, I whispered inside, what am I doing wrong?
Back home, after the supermarket and the long walk in the heat (because the bus fare now felt like a luxury), I found a note tucked inside the pages of my old Qur’an. A simple line in my husband’s handwriting. From a time before he left to find work abroad.
“Sabr isn’t silence. It’s trusting even when nothing is changing.”
My eyes filled again — not the hot frustrated tears from earlier, but slow ones. The kind that come when words land deep.
I remembered when he wrote it. It was just days after we lost our second baby. He sat beside me in the hospital, my hand cold in his, and said nothing. Just that line, later, on a scrap of paper folded into my prayer mat.
Now, here I was. Still waiting. Still hoping. Still counting every coin and every slice of bread.
Night came. I put the children to sleep, wiped the kitchen down clean though there wasn’t much dinner to clean up after. My knees hit the prayer rug heavier than usual. Fajr used to be the hardest prayer — waking while the sky was still dark, a quiet house, aching limbs. But now I cling to it, because it’s the only time I can hear my own breath.
I sat, head bowed, after two rak’ahs, fingers tracing the last part of Surah Al-Baqarah as if the letters themselves might carry me.
“Allah does not burden a soul beyond that it can bear…”
But some burdens stretch you until you don’t know what form you are anymore.
A distant thunder rumbled. The kind that promised rain. And then, just like that, the first drop struck the window. Then another. And within minutes, the sound of rain filled the whole room — thick, cool, kind.
I opened the window. My breath caught.
It had been weeks since the rain came. The street looked washed, shimmering. The dusty leaves danced as the water kissed them. I don’t know why, but it felt like the sky had waited — just like me — to be full enough to pour.
I whispered a dua — a prayer from deep inside — without words. Only tears. Only breath.
In that moment, I didn't know if things would get better. My husband was still gone. The bills were still stacked. The cereal shelf was still missing the chocolate one.
But the rain fell. And my children were safe in their beds. And I was still here, with my forehead to the ground, calling on the One who never turned me away.
And that was enough. For now.
That was hope.
That was sabr — not loud, not strong, not perfect. Just breathing, just waiting, just whispering His name into the dark.
And somehow, even when nothing had changed — something inside me had.
I closed the window. Let the rain sing us both to sleep.
Relevant Qur’an Verses and Hadith
(Surah Ar-Rum, 30:60)
(Surah At-Talaq, 65:2–3)
(Surah Ash-Sharh, 94:6–7)
(Surah Al-Baqarah, 2:286)
(Muslim, Hadith 2999)
