Two-Cents

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

It's been said that Jannah is surrounded by obstacles and that which we would find hard to do. This is true. I cannot speak of the end of this journey, but I can describe something of the road leading to it. 

Jannah takes patience, endurance of harm and deficit, persistence in the khair of one's nature, stubborn refusal of one's darker calling,  and recurring awareness that the self will definitely, unquestionably, certainly be held accountable in front of Allah for all its actions and all its intents.

Part of my essence, my code, a defining quality of my being, is that I seek the good in a situation and try to leave the bad from it. This is pretty much always the case. The emotion I find does not fuel guilt because it is fuel for something else: my drive to see my vision, His gift to me, complete. My vision does not settle in this earthly life, it isn't satisfied with temporal/momentary pleasure or fulfillment, I want it all, completely, for EVER. As I know that one day death will come to me, I have to seek Eternity in the only place it can be found: akhirah. Every experience of mine is ultimately nothing more than fuel towards that end, for the bigger picture is what I chase, though I must live in the moment and try to not fail utterly at whatever He tries me with in the meantime.

If you can (and you must), collect and preserve the emotion from your mirror, use it to endure whatever escapes your grasp in this life, so that in the Next, you find hold of it in permanence. If this emotion allows you to accept difficult circumstances and remain steadfast, then consider it a gift from your Rabb, but if you find that it leads you into annihilation in self-satisfaction, then you have to take a few steps back and reflect. Among the things I've long been trying to do, with that emotion I tucked away in a time capsule, is to purify it, keep it free of my own personal selfishness and need, such that whenever it's brought to mind, its purpose becomes entirely the goal I seek at the end of my road, and not some half-way measure before then. 

Before Allah, I have no cover, no shield, no protection or help, no aid, no defense, no place or means of hiding, no recovery, and simply put, in front of Him, I have nothing. In my endeavor, if I had an inkling of ill intent to seek what He did not permit, He would seize me then and there. I write this because inshaAllah I want you to find something similar to it, a kind of awareness that becomes your eternal rope to Him in every circumstance. I will never stop being what I am, bi ithniAllah, and that includes my emotions and expressions, but maybe this also includes being a trial for you. But, it is possible to pass a trial with the aid from another trial. I know this for fact because that is precisely what it is for me: I could not ask for a more beautiful trial (you) in everything He's ever brought to me. Would I shun the potential gain (Eternity) for fear of what others may think or come to know? Absolutely not. The only outside concern that matters for me is what my Rabb thinks of me, and though my weaknesses are immense, there is a certain part of the soul that yearns to return to its Creator. I cannot deny this redirection towards Him, indeed, many times it's been the mechanism of His saving grace that kept me from falling completely into any number of darknesses. 

Ok, monologue aside. I am your mirror. Thus I would always have it be, iA. When you need to reflect, or recharge, or remember, then seek your reflection. There's only one direction I can point to, because it's the only place I want/need/have to go: up, way, way up...Firdaus.