Daily Du’a for the Busy Muslim Mom #10: Dealing with Worry and Grief

Ponn Sabra | July 29, 2012 | Comments (0)

I’ve always found it interesting how people equate worry with grief, as I’ve never been one of those people. More specifically, those closest to me know I rarely–if ever–worry. “How?” I’m often asked. “This is life…Everything is from Allah subhanahu wa Ta’ala.” In worrying for the future, something totally out of our control, I’ve always found it a waste of time, energy and effort to worry about it. Having lived through Intifada, uprising, pre and post-revolutions, and what I think may have been the worse, the detaining of my then 5-year-old daughter sick with antibiotics in an Israeli jail–I’ve had my fair share of typical worries a Muslim mom may encounter. But, I prayed, I did what was in my control, and I gave everything to Allah’s will.

Now, in regards to dealing with difficult grieving moments such as death or major illness, I’ve found that I answer the question of my composure with the same answer: “This is life…Everything is from Allah subhanahu wa Ta’ala.” However, those who know me best know that when I need my time to grieve, I need my space–period.

I find dealing with grief to be more difficult simply because we’re halting our human instinct to ask “How? Why? Why not? Why not me? Could anything have been done differently?” Dealing with the present or even the past invokes emotions and stirs up memories, both good and bad. Even possibly guilt.

All I can share is that, it is these very critical life moments as often or infrequent as they may come into a Muslim mom’s life, in which we need to follow the Rasul salallahu alayhi wa salam’s lead and recite this du’a for worry or grief:

O Allah, I am Your slave and the son of Your male slave and the son of Your female slave. My forehead is in Your Hand (i.e. You have control over me).Your judgment upon me is assured and Your Decree concerning me is just. I ask You by every Name that You have named Yourself with, revealed in Your Book, taught any one of Your creation or kept unto Yourself in the knowledge of the unseen that is with You, to make the Qur’an the spring of my heart, and the light of my chest, the banisher of my sadness and the reliever of my distress.

O Allah, I seek refuge in You from grief and sadness, from weakness and from laziness, from miserliness and from cowardice, from being overcome by debt and overpowered by men (i.e. others).

While easier said than done, it’s our duty to recite these du’a at a nice steady pace to contemplate each word and its grave meaning. In reciting multiple times, we are to find a lift of our spirits as we feel the presence of Allah subhanahu wa Ta’ala with us. This alone should give us strength, Insha’Allah Ta’ala.