With Every Hardship

Al-Ahad filled the depravity in these bones
with the sweetness of Iman.
He replaced this hopeless heart
with a live, beating one
that believed divine relief was just a few steps in the distance.

In the night I cried out to Him,
Ya Allah, Ya Allah
I ask you by all the Names you have revealed in Your book...
and He gave me the hardships He knew I could shoulder.
He gave me punishment to expiate my sins
and so I loved Him more,
though my heart was heavy with grief,
and my shoulders slumped from the weight of sadness.

Now every gust of wind that blows against my skin
satiates my limbs with the desire to meet Him,
and causes my eyes to close in imagination
of how the breeze in Paradise would feel,
how it would evaporate the lines of age and distress from my face.

Ya Allah, Ya Allah
my Lord, I am in anguish
that I replaced Your love in my heart with the love of people
and things
believing they would make me whole
but they disappointed my heart and left it barren.

Ya Allah, Ya Allah
I ask you through Your Name by which if you are asked, You will not reject Your servant...
and He gave me more difficulties,
but I withstood them
and I stood taller, bending my face towards His Light.

I wait for these moments, days, years to pass
until I meet my Rabb,
until I am able to bask in the brilliance of an everlasting rest,
until my heart is so full of love that it knows nothing else.

Ya Wadood
allow me to enter it.