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Hardship

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It is 1am. It is quiet and peaceful. Tomorrow is expected to be a rainy day. There is a cricket in the AC it looks like. He has gone quiet now. Hopefully he does not make this a habit. I would much prefer if he makes his home outside. Turns out the cricket was on the side of the bed. I used a container and book to capture him and then set him loose outside by the water tank. You belong in nature my friend. I have an envelope with 14 blank sheets of paper that I had in an old box. I read that you can count the number of cricket chirps to determine the temperature. Sounds like legend rather than fact to me. There are several formulas but one commonly cited formula is, to convert cricket chirps to degrees Fahrenheit, count the number of chirps in 14 seconds then add 40. Too late to test this out as the cricket is now gone.

Earlier on I had chosen the word boat. I asked God to show me a sign that He is listening by showing me the word boat in some way. I decided to close my eyes and choose a random verse from the Quran. I got surah 16 (the bee) and verse 22. I then decided to scroll down to verse 14 and this is what it reads - "And it is He who has subjected the sea to you, so that you eat of its tender meat and extract from it ornaments which you wear. And you see the ships ploughing their course through it in order that you seek His bounty and give thanks." What could be the significance of 22? I could have gone directly to 14 and that would have been more convincing. It is now 222am and I still feel like I have missed something.

After contemplating and searching, for some time, I came across the word hardship that has the word ship in it and then the Islamic reminder that after hardship comes ease. Had I gone directly to verse 14 I might have missed this moment. I am glad I took this longer road. Sometimes we go through difficulties and wonder why. Why me? Why this? We have a choice, be sad or view our struggles as blessings in disguise. We do not want the hardship. We do not encourage the hardship but we are faced with the hardship nonetheless and so we might as well make the best of it. It makes sense to see the good of it all and know that things will get better. God knows best and we are just his servants who are being tested and we should strive to make the best of this test.

*Got stung by a bee (6 days after writing this blog post) after buying bananas and mangoes and walking pass the mosque. I think it is the first I have been stung by a bee. So far my body has not reacted badly to the sting.
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