15 TAHUN KEHADAPAN

Kepada sosok tubuh yang saya kagumi, yang tulisannya selalu menjadi tempat saya berteduh hati.

Buya Hamka,

Seawal umur 12 tahun saya telah diperkenalkan dengan Novel Tenggelamnya Kapal  Van Der Wijk, tidak pernah saya menyangka bahwa 15 tahun kehadapannya saya akan menjejakkan kaki ke tanah tempat Zainudin dan Hayati berbalas pandangan dan berbagi perasaan. Tidak pernah saya menyangka akan menjejakkan kaki ke tanah tempat Buya sendiri meluahkan segala rasa dan amatan.

Ketahuilah, kedatangan saya bukan sahaja membawa visi dan inspirasi, tetapi juga hati yang hampir menyerah dan mati. Dan kembara ini mungkin saja usaha yang terakhir tanpa saya menduga bahawa ia adalah titik permulaan pada sesuatu yang lebih bermakna dari apa yang pernah dihilangkan pergi.

Demikianlah manusia. Dia menyangka bahawa harapan itu telah terputuskan  oleh rentapan luar tanpa menyedari bahawa dialah yang memutuskan dengan tangannya sendiri.

Buya Hamka,

Kerana percayanya hati saya ini dengan kata-kata Imam Ghazali bahawa hati itu bisa dijemput pulang menerusi perenungan alam, maka tercampaknya tubuh kerdil ini di sini. Dan bersaksilah bahawa ia benar. Melihat alam itu seperti meluahkan rasa tanpa perlu berbicara. Merenung alam itu seperti melepaskan rindu dan gundah hanya menerusi pandangan mata yang lara.

Seperti kita membenamkan rahsia tanpa perlu melubangkan  jiwa..

Nasihat Pak Dasri itu tepat sekali, menjadi pencinta alam itu jangan sampai dilupakan pada pencipta alam. Kerana kalau ciptaan itu juga sudah mampu menenangkan, seperti apa lagi perasaannya kalau berada dekat pada yang menciptakan ciptaan itu? Kan seharusnya syukur itu dipanjatkan pada si pemberi, bukan pada pemberiannya yang dilazimi. 

Buya Hamka,

Sayalah keduanya. Bukan Zainudin. Bukan Hayati. Tapi saya adalah gabungan mereka. Yang pernah berlindung pada yang salah dan melepaskan janji selepas setelah. Dan saya juga keduanya yang menyesal kecewa sesudah terlanjur  bicara menyakiti dan melukai.

Namun saya tetap saja saya, walaupun kisah mereka berakhir dengan kematian, tetapi saya masih hidup. Dan kisah saya masih bisa diteruskan walaupun tiada helaian selepas helaian yang terakhir. Kerana saya masih hidup. Dan hidup saya tidak terbatas pada pena dan kertas.  Seperti kata buya sendiri :

“Apakah keuntungan dan bahagianya cinta yang tiada pengharapan? Bukankah cinta itu sudah satu keuntungan dan pengharapan?”

Pengharapan itulah yang membuatkan hati rasa terpandu, persis pedoman Ustaz Abdullah Bukhari akan pesan Tuhan untuk menjadikan alam sebagai kompas kehidupan. Hati rasa terpadang, dan itulah hikmahnya persis wejangan Encik Hanapi bahawa pengalaman itu melalui perasaan dan bukannya bacaan.

Buya Hamka,

Telah saya selesaikan di sini. Telah saya lepaskan cengkaman kukuh yang suatu ketika dahulunya saya menggengam utuh, sehinggakan culas untuk saya sedari bahawa genggaman itu sebenarnya telah meninggalkan luka dan lelas yang membekas.

Dan sesungguhnya melepaskan itu menyembuhkan.

Telah saya selesaikan di sini. 
Telah saya kuburkan di sini.
Semoga yang terkubur itu, darinya dapat menumbuhkan sesuatu yang subur.

 “Sesungguhnya dalam penciptaan langit dan bumi, dan silih bergantinya malam dan siang terdapat tanda-tanda bagi orang yang berakal iaitu orang yang mengingat Allah sambil berdiri atau duduk atau dalam keadaan berbaring dan mereka memikirkan tentang penciptaan langit dan bumi seraya berkata : “ Ya Rabb Kami, tiadalah Engkau menciptakan ini dengan sia-sia, Maha Suci Engkau, maka peliharalah kami dari siksa neraka” (Ali-Imran 3:190-191)

(Sumatera Barat, 15.12.2018 - 12.10am)

Being strong

The moment you have to tell yourself that you are strong, means you are not strong. But you force yourself to be strong, which is okay. We have to start somewhere anyhow.

For me, a strong character is something that you have to build, it does not come by nature and it cannot be restored in yourselves without facing any great calamities and difficulties. 

This is one of the reason on why God always inflict us with hardships (Q2:216). To build it in us and to prepare us for something greater that only strong people can understand and manage. 

Till at one point, you dont have to tell yourself to be strong anymore. When something happens, you just embrace it with full heart. It doesnt matter to you what the outcome could be. What your focus is to improvise yourselves, move on with your lives and create a better tomorrow than yesterday. 

Strong people dont realise that they are strong. They just have it in them.

Keeping hope alive

I have a friend. We used to be best friend and now we are all separated with our own paths.

One day she contacted me and all out everything. She said that she has gone astray too much from the religion and that she even dared to commit adultery. She asked me what to do because out of everything that she had done, she was still in love with her ex. She felt hopeless. She felt that everything was meaningless.

I listened to her carefully, giving her full attention. We talked about the mercy of Allah, we talked about life, we talked about our purpose in this dunya as the slave as well as the vicegerance of Allah. We go for the solution. Its a lot of steps - its not as easy as ' I wanna to move on and thats it, Im successful, Im good. No. I understand its not that easy and I wished I could be more helpful to her.

Yesterday she whatsapped me and said, out of all the people in this world, she didnt expect at all that I can accept her and not judge her for what she had done. I was the last option and the option that changed her perspectives *cough*.

She asked : What makes you to behave like this? You know, by your appearance, people like you will shun away from people like me, what makes you not?

"People do terrible things, it does not mean that they are terrible person. Just because you told me that you committed bad things, doesnt mean that you are not capable of any good. We are human and we make mistakes."

By sharing this, Im not saying that Im a good person, i am not - I am still striving to be a good one, but as said by Yasmin mogahed, people don’t need to be condemned. People need hope. People need to believe that they matter to God. That no matter how far they’ve fallen or strayed, He always awaits their return.

Say, "O My servants who have transgressed against themselves (by sonning) do not despair of the mercy of Allah. Indeed, Allah forgives all sins. Indeed, it is He who is the forgiving, the merciful." (Az zumar verse 53)

What doesn't kill you make you stronger.

I might not understand your situation, but I do understand the pain.

You are not the most unhappy person in this world. You are not the person who is suffering most in this world. 

You know what, there are a lot of things to be regretful of in my life. There are a lot of things I feel that I shouldn't have done. If I had ever been given the chance, I would chose to do otherwise. 

I lost people that I loved. Since I am an introvert, this matters a lot to me. I lost them because of my mistake. Do you know what, its very painful to remember all the memories while you know you can never have the chance at least in this dunya to get it back? To have it back?

Have you ever experienced when you missed someone but you realized that you cant meet them, you cant talk to them the way it used to be and you cant touch them, feel them?

I lost something that was dear to me. I lost doing something that I loved. I lost my plans. I lost my hope. I lost my purpose. I lost everything that meant a lot to me.

I was heart broken and still am. I have a lot of problems. I have a lot of regrets. I have a lot of upsets and disappointment feelings. 

But what doesnt kill you make you stronger. I survived and am still surviving. I have strong reason to end everything, to give up on my life, to suck my life out, to be a bad person, to hold grudge..to everything because im a human and im not perfect.

But I chose not to. Thats the only difference between you and me. Everything else, we are just the same. 

I was very fragile inside. I cared for people so much. I was deep. I was an easily crying person. I got easily attached to people and moments. These were all my weaknesses and for the records, some of them i still cant hoop over.

Allah tested me to make me stronger. To build something good in me. To prepare me for something bigger. I have gone through a lot of sufferings and I deserved to be happy.

So I chose to rise above. Because I have a choice and we all do.

If you're accusing me for not understand how hurtful or suffer your condition is right now, yes, i might not understand that, but I do understand the pain.

I really do. 

When you're broken, everything breaks

When youre broken, everything breaks. 

Or to be more precise, problems, hardships or negative events, all of them came in one shot, as if an approaching hurricane creating a domino effect.

That is the time when you feel absolutely hopeless. Speechless. Clueless. Ive gone through this, I guess, a lot of times since I am so stubborn and always go against normality. I'll do what I think is the right thing to do, and when it turns out the other way round, I bear the risk. 

Well. Youve been given choices and sometimes you made the wrong choice. It doesnt mean that youre a loser, it means that you have the courage to learn from mistake. This is the way when people start to grow and be a better person than before. They learn from mistake.

Oh ya well, back to square one, when you feel hopeless what did you do? Posting on facebook for countless of times stating that youre okay? Let me tell you this..when you are trying to convince yourself or other persons that youre okay, it means you are not okay. It means you need help and support. To have the courage to seek help and support first, you need to admit that you have problem, that you are now going through difficulties and need help.

As a muslim, who is the first person you will rush to? ALLAH.

"O Allah, this is too much, this is beyond my ability, I cant bear this, please make it easy for me.. I beg you o Allah."

Of course Allah knows best. Of course he inflicts us with difficulties because he knows we can bear it. But do we know that? No. We dont know what will happen, so we have to seek the help from Allah -- a source of getting courage and spirit to go through all this and what will be coming ahead.

Verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest (Q13:28).

I dont say that everybody will feel this - it depends on how sincere and desperate you are in making the du'a, but as for me, after I have this heart to heart session with ALLAH and all out everything, I feel miraculously peaceful even though I was in the middle of a terrible hurricane. When we feel peace, thats the time when we can think better on how to solve our problems - because our mind is stable and ready. 

And of course Allah will help us in a way that fits. He might give us the idea of consulting this people, he might bring positive people around us etc etc. Its our own choice to lower our ego and grab all these chances.

When youre broken, everything breaks? I guess so unless you give your heart and all the damages to Allah to mend it. Everything will be just fine. That is why : 

“Amazing is the affair of the believer, verily all of his affair is good and this is not for no one except the believer. If something of good/happiness befalls him he is grateful and that is good for him. If something of harm befalls him he is patient and that is good for him” 
(Saheeh Muslim #2999)

Because they have faith in Allah..They have Allah.

Do you?

My dad is awesome and I wish I realised it earlier.

My dad is awesome.

I always against him back then. He wanted me to do this, but I wanted to do the other way round, and I did it the way I wanted. I was raised up in a family that strongly hold on a jemaah. Its a very good jemaah actually, but theres always this thought that made me think, by following this jemaah, why I cannot sustain and maintain being a better person, mantain to obey Allah and do what He wants us to do like praying on time, reading quran, fasting and so on.

So I went out from that 'world' my dad has been built since I was born and searching for the reason. And I found it. I found out that knowledge in doing something is very essential. I need to understand first before putting into action. I did comparative study ie comparative religion so that I can see the falsehood in other religion which made me more appreciate Islam.

My dad happy with my progress in religion but he didnt agree with me on reading the bible, focusly doing on dakwah to non-muslim, travelled here and there alone. Because in my family we have this understanding that the best place for women is in the house. That women cannot travel without mahram, women cant be friend with guys regardless of any reason, at all. Not appropriate for women to show themselves infront of society. And we must do islah to the muslim first. That kind of things.

I against him, again. I was trying to prove him that he was wrong. That I found something better. Till now, i was very upset with my response towards him. I should have understand his concern to me. I should. Right? T.T

But my dad is very awesome. One day he called me, and I thought He will said something that made me feels bad, made me feels that I am an ungrateful daughter or whatever. But instead it was, "Are you still who I raised you to be?"

My dad believes in religion, believes in his jemaah, and my dad is not a man who bends, but he bent for me because I am his daughter.

And now, after a lot of things happened in my life, I can see and really understand what he was trying to do. He was actually trying to protect me and I wish I could understand him better that time.

But i guess that its not too late for me to show my appreciation towards him. I know it is not enough, I know I cannot repay all his sacrifices and now he is getting older, I know its kinda late, however, all I can do is be the best daughter to him and pray to Allah for his blessing till i die.

I will come back this weekend, meet him and give my full time on him because he deserves that. Because he is my dad. He is my first hero. He is the first guy I knew in this world.

And because my dad is awesome and I love him so much.

Worrying being a single, women?

You are not created in this world to marry someone. Our purpose of life is not marriage, rather marriage is as a means to reach our purpose of life. Kan?

What is our purpose of life in the first place? As a slave of Allah.

"And I did not create the jinn and mankind except to worship Me." (Az-Zariyat 51:56)

Jangan terlampau risau. Teruskan pergantungan kepada Allah dari awal hingga akhir, dalam sepanjang pencarian, dalam usaha yang sedaya mampu dan akhirnya, let Allah make the decision because He knows best. After all, jodoh itu di tangan Allah, timing semua under His control. Not ours. Actually, ada hikmah kenapa jodoh masih belum sampai, again, He knows best. He is the Most wiser after all. Kan?

So, chill. Banyak contoh wanita-wanita yang disebut dalam Al-Quran yang kita boleh muhasabah :

1) Asiah isteri firaun (ada suami tetapi hampeh)
2) Mariam ibu kepada Nabi isa a.a (tak kahwin)
3) Isteri Nabi Luth ( diri sendiri yang hampeh)

Apa yang nak ditunjukkan di sini? Clearly women do not need men to get to Jannah. But for those yang dah kahwin, pasangan adalah ujian dan jadikanlah mereka means to Jannah! Yosh!

Makanya, la tahzan, innallaha ma'ana. Jangan bersedih sahabat, sesungguhnya Allah bersama kita.

"..Janganlah bersedih, sesungguhnya Allah bersama kita.." (At-Taubah 9:40)

Apa yang lagi gembira dan membahagiakan dari mempunyai Allah dalam hidup dan bersama kita? Lagipun, dunia ni sementara saja. Tak dapat kahwin kat sini, insyaallah dapat kahwin kat syurga. So, silalah work hard untuk melayakkan diri ke syurga, itu lebih menguntungkan!

"Janganlah kamu bersikap lemah, dan janganlah pula kamu bersedih hati, padahal kamulah orang-orang yang paling tinggi darjatnya, jika kamu orang-orang yang beriman." (Ali-Imran 3:139)  

Life is a test, to know who is the best, said Allah.

InsyaAllah =)