"Pens down", he said...
And with that, a tear drop rolled down my cheeks, no longer able to stay back.
That was it. My two and a half days of studying, my six sections of notes, my stressful weekend, and my one and a half hours of examination period... All gone! Down the drain! Worthless!
I recently wrote my first term exams. I was extremely delighted when my favourite paper was coming up.. Islamic Studies written. To me, it was an easy A, anything below 85% was a fail for that subject.
After spending my entire weekend preparing for the paper and going out of my way to ensure that I would not only pass the paper, but get the highest mark, the day finally came.
Luckily for me, as I read through the paper, everything seemed pretty easy, I was well prepared for all the questions in the paper, and I was absolutely sure that I would pass that paper with flying colours.... Until....
Somehow, someway, as the invigilator said "pens down", I found myself out of time with still 20% of the paper to go.
And that was it.
____________________________________________________
After all the crying, the depression, the complaining and the self-blaming, I finally recovered when some very important questions crossed my mind..
What if the situation had been different and this was the test of Allah? What if I had ran out of time in
the dunya? What if I were to return to my Creator having not passed the test given to me by Him? What if, after all my efforts, I'm still at loss on the day of Qiyamah just because I ran out of time to pass the greatest test of all.. The test of the dunya?
We go about our daily lives not caring about tomorrow, not caring about tonight, not caring about the next hour.
We assume that we have all the time in the world. We delay good deeds, delay our Salaahs, delay our Istighfaar because we think that we will have enough time to do it later.
We know all the answers, we've read the Qur'aan, we've studied the religion, we know the difference between right and wrong, we know what will get us into Jannah and what will lead us astray.. We know all the answers.
Yet, what if we were to fail our exam, not because we don't know the answers, but because we simply ran out of time? We might have been short of perhaps only 5 minutes to gain those extra points.. Yet we failed.
We failed because whenever an opportunity came to us to do good and to attain our Jannah, we never grabbed that opportunity, we were too slow, we assumed tht we had all the time in the world. We forgot that:
"Opportunity is something which is quick to vanish and late to return." Imam Hassan Al-Mujtaba (AS)
Just imagine: on the day of Qiyamah, when everyone is pleading for their own souls, when even the mother remembers not her own child; tears will be rolling down your cheeks, you'll be pleading before Allah, pleading to anyone, begging.. Begging.. Begging for just one more chance, just 5 more minutes to carry out that one deed to pass the test, the one deed that would have ensured you your Jannah.
But on that day, you'll be at loss. On that day, that Islamic studies test you cried over will be as small as a teardrop. And the tears that would now roll down your cheeks would be greater that an ocean of tears.
Ibn Abbas narrated that Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) said:
"There are two blessings which many people lose: (They are) health and free time for doing good." (Bukhari 8/421)
Wise are the words of the one who said ... "I expect to pass through this world but once; any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."
As terrible as I felt after having messed up my exam, after having considered this, the situation seems so minor.
We pay so much attention and we spend so much of our time attending to the affairs of the dunya that we don't stop to consider the Akhirah. Everything we do in this world should be a means of us entering Jannah. Therefore, we should spend our time in such a manner that will gain us entry into Jannah. Let's not be amongst those filled with regrets, pleading for one more chance. Let's use our time wisely so that, Inshallah, we can pass the exams of this world and the hereafter.
"O Allah! Make life a means for every dimension of goodness." [Prayer of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH)]
ѕнιяα.ѕυ∂ι ♡
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