Too Coincidental To Ignore ...

I have lived my life believing that nothing is accidental but everything is planned and there is a GREAT DESIGNER that has drawn up the grand plan followed by the ones with minute details.

This year has not started out easy for me and I was hoping that it would end better, but now I am not so sure, but as a believer I have to believe that whatever may be the situation for me, it is all good and that my affairs are in the hands of the best DECIDER.  Its a struggle against our desires and that we know as truth, but my  alignment is always going off tangent for I am such a weak servant.

Two things happened today that was just too coincidental for me to ignore.  The first was a meetimg with a stranger.  I met this lady on a bus on the way back from doing groceries. She offered to help me with my groceries and asked me where I was from.  So I told her I was from Malaysia, and what a surprise - she was from Malaysia too.  Back in 1977 she married a Yemeni man and they moved to Jeddah. At the beginning of the Gulf War they moved to Yemen.  When they moved to Yemen, he took on another wife and left her with 4 children without releasing her or providing for them.  She struggled to raise her 4 dhildren up by selling food stuff and doing catering and alhamdulilllah, they are now all grown up and with jobs.  She now has grandchildren and spends her time visiting the children and grandchildren.  The last thing she told me before getting off the bus was "it is ONLY ALLAH that helps you."  Almost immediately I felt like crying but held back the tears as I was in this small "dabbab" with my groceries, sitting cramped among 6 people, surely any breakdown would attract much attention.  But subhanallah, was this coincidental?  Was HE trying to send me a message - as the situation was too similar between this lady and me.

I got off the bus and walked home and no sooner had I laid the groceries down, my Yemeni brother called to say he was coming to send me empty bottles for my soybean drink production. I thought he was just going to send the bottles, but he sat down and decided that he wanted to give me his views on "why I should not remarry."  He told me that it would be difficult for me to find a man that could love my boys as if they were his own. If I were to remarry, it has to be for the boys, but where can I find such a man.  If I remarried, the man that marries me will want attention and the three boys needs my attention.  Not only do they need attention but they need many things as boys growing up.  Only a very special man could fulfill my needs as a husband and as a father to my children.  I listened to him, with hopes crushed of ever finding someone to spend the remaining days of my life with and to share the joy of watching my boys grow up to be fine muslim men.  I almost cried again for the second time within an hour today, but I could not show my weakness in front of him.  All I said to him was, "well I would like to believe that I am special and that I will have hope in Allah that this very special man will be made available to me".  I could not help but think - was this also another message for me, that I am required to sacrifice?

These two incidents today did not help at all with how I have been feeling lately - the feeling of loneliness, the needing of love, attention and care of the other gender, the fact that Allah is suppose to have created men and women for one another, and that if we have desires that they are to be fulfilled through marriage.  I have not really sat down to analyze the two incidents yet, but it sure has made me pause to think.  There is much truth in what my Yemeni brother has said, but I do not believe that hope is hopeless, and Allah answers our every du'a and it is just a matter of now or then .

For the moment, it is just too coincidental to ignore .....