TAKE BACK YOUR HEART
No one likes to fall. And few people would ever choose to drown. But in struggling through the ocean
of this life, sometimes it’s so hard not to let the world in. Sometimes the ocean does enter us. The
dunya does seep into our hearts.
And like the water that breaks the boat, when dunya enters, it shatters our heart. It shatters the boat.
Recently, I was reminded of what a broken boat looks like, of what happens when you let everything
in. I was reminded because I saw someone, just like me, fall in love too much with this life and seek
to be filled by the creation. So the ocean of dunya shattered her boat, as it had shattered mine, and she
fell out into the water. But she stayed down too long, and didn’t know how to come back up or what
to hold on to.
So she drowned.
If you allow dunya to own your heart, like the ocean that owns the boat, it will take over. You will
sink down to the depths of the sea. You will touch the ocean floor. And you will feel as though you
were at your lowest point. Entrapped by your sins and the love of this life, you will feel broken,
surrounded by darkness. That’s the amazing thing about the floor of the ocean. No light reaches it.
However, this dark place is not the end. Remember that the darkness of night precedes the dawn. And
as long as your heart still beats, this is not the death of it. You don’t have to die here. Sometimes, the
ocean floor is only a stop on the journey. And it is when you are at this lowest point, that you are
faced with a choice. You can stay there at the bottom, until you drown. Or you can gather pearls and
rise back up—stronger from the swim and richer from the jewels.
If you seek Him, God can raise you up, and replace the darkness of the ocean, with the light of His
sun. He can transform what was once your greatest weakness into your greatest strength, and a means
of growth, purification and redemption. Know that transformation sometimes begins with a fall. So
never curse the fall. The ground is where humility lives. Take it. Learn it. Breathe it in. And then
come back stronger, humbler and more aware of your need for Him. Come back having seen your own
nothingness and His greatness. Know that if you have seen that Reality, you have seen much. For the
one who is truly deceived is the one who sees his own self—but not Him. Deprived is the one who
has never witnessed his own desperate need for God. Reliant on his own means, he forgets that the
means, his own soul, and everything else in existence are His creation.
Seek God to bring you back up, for when He does, He will rebuild your ship. The heart that you
thought was forever damaged will be mended. What was shattered will be whole again. Know that
only He can do this. Seek Him.
And when He saves you, beg forgiveness for the fall, feel remorse over it—but not despair. As Ibn ul
Qayyim (ra) has said: “Satan rejoiced when Adam (peace be upon him) came out of Paradise, but he
did not know that when a diver sinks into the sea, he collects pearls and then rises again.”
There is a powerful and amazing thing about tawbah (repentance) and turning back to Allah (swt). We
are told that it is a polish for the heart. What’s amazing about a polish is that it doesn’t just clean. It
makes the object that is polished even shinier than it was before it got dirty. If you come back to God,
seek His forgiveness, and refocus your life and heart on Him, you have the potential to be even richer
than if you’d never fallen at all. Sometimes falling and coming back up gives you wisdom and