I have always been one of those people who believe in Allah’s promise to compensate us for our suffering on this earth. Since I was a child, I somehow developed the maturity at such a young age, to understand that everything has an appointed time, including Allah’s reward (and also His punishment!). Maybe it was the inner knowing, that “My God is not like that. He is not unjust. People are unjust.” So for me, the challenge throughout my difficulties has not been one of faith particularly. It has been a challenge of patience. Of incredible patience. Being the forgiving person that I naturally am, I am not one to wish ill upon others at the slightest pain- as I too, wish to be forgiven by Allah for my transgressions. Instead, I ask Allah for reward- and that indeed, has always been my focus. And as I grew older and wiser, through my teenage years and beyond, I challenged myself even more and more. I raised my standards of patience, in response to the increasing episodes of abuse and neglect that I experienced. Regardless of whether these standards met Allah’s requirements, that was my effort, to grow spiritually, in expectation of recognition from my Allah.

​

Throughout the years, I spoke to Allah a lot, in conversation but also through supplication. Allah was my ‘best Friend,’ as only He understood the clear and invisible abuse that others could not see. He didn’t make any excuses for the abuse, when others in the community would. I remember I would ask Allah- “Allah, You know what they are doing, right?!” as if expecting Him to keep tally, in case He ‘forgot.’ Being human, I suppose, we need validation and acknowledgement once in a while, and I wasn’t getting it from humans. And, as time passed, I began ‘collecting’ my traumas to ‘show’ Allah (as if He wasn’t there already!) each time I would experience pain that was a result of that trauma. I would explain to myself why I was experiencing the pain, so Allah would ‘remember’ it. And because I was focussed on ‘collecting’ the trauma, I wasn’t letting it go, and allowing myself to really grow on the deepest level. For some reason, I thought that by holding on to the trauma and continuing to show Allah how much I had suffered and continued to suffer, I was ‘proving’ to Him, that I was worthy of recognition from Him. Now that I think about it, it was kind of like the relationship that I had with my abusers- of me trying to ‘be good’ to ‘prove’ my worth to them. At the back of my mind, I was also fearful, that if I forgot my trauma and healed totally, Allah might ‘forget’ it also, and ignore that it ever happened. I forgot that Allah takes account. He takes account of everything. In hindsight, I realise that I was equating Allah to humans. Because the people around me were not acknowledging my pain, I thought I needed to ‘remind’ Allah of it, for Him to understand. Why I would cry without reason. Why I would have spells of forgetfullness. Why my body was so tired. I should have realised however, that Allah is much greater than people. He doesn’t require us to collect our traumas and store them in the recesses of our brains and hearts in order for us to be compensated for the pain that these traumas have caused, and for the collateral damage. It is not a ‘show your receipt’ system, and then you will get rewards points.

​

I knew that Allah already knows everything. He knows. But I realise now, how I had it all wrong.

With Allah, it was never about collecting traumas.

It was about letting them go.