Last days of 2021 - Rounding Out the Year with SS :)
Whoa… this year has just flown by, hasn’t it? You might thought we’d be in a world far removed from COVID-19 right? Unfortunately we gotta forget that already. But Alhamdullilah, with the COVID vaccine now widely available for nearly a year now, a lot of us have returned to living our lives outside of our homes.
We gotta adhere to the changes of lifestyles for many of us and often for the better. COVID and sheltering in place was a sort of reckoning for many of us, from how we worship in Ramadan to the friendships and relationships we value to how we approach our careers and work life in conjunction with our family life. Times like this make us wonder – what really matters to us? What is it that we value? Where, how and with whom do we want to spend our time? Sugarscarf pray that the things we’ve learned from all this in regards to ourselves, our families and our communities is something we carry forth with us in the years to come, as COVID isn’t something that is going away. Yes… bitter to swallow this reality but it is the QADR of Allah SWT.
In a way, if we don’t learn something from all this, if we don’t renew our intentions to live with purpose in accordance with Allah’s guidance, then we will be at a loss!
That’s the beauty of renewing intentions. It isn’t beholden to a certain time of year or can only be done once. You can make a mistake, lose your way, find yourself questioning things or not “feeling” things. And, it is with a deep look at our intentions – the “Why we are doing this? Whom is it for?” – that you can Insha’Allah resolve to keep going forward or make a change in your life. And, we can renew our intentions constantly, over and over. Allah SWT is that merciful upon us. He gives us ample opportunities to atone for our mistakes, renew our intentions and try and better ourselves :)
We don’t know about you, but in SS we always reflect in finding as much comfort in this as well as the push to reexamine what are we doing in our life – like wearing the hijab?
To renew and refresh your intentions behind wearing hijab is what the main point of this blog entry :) The idea is that one should “wear it like you mean it,” meaning try to wear your hijab with intent and meaning and not as a rote exercise. The same goes for your faith and life practices, like (for example) Solat or how you nurture the relationships in your life, right?
And so here we are in the last days of December, and we are bringing back a fundamental reminder… asking uncomfortable questions and pushing each other to consider our relationship with our hijab and our Allah SWT.
- Why do we wear it?
- Why does Allah SWT want us to wear it?
- Why do some of us take it off?
- What is holding us back?
- What are our intentions?
- How do we renew our intentions?
- How do we make sure our intentions are meaningful and God-guided?
As always, make good choices and start with Bismillah!