HARDSHIP AND EASE

image: with thanks via Iraj Jahanshahi on facebook

"And, behold, with every hardship comes ease: verily, with every hardship comes ease!"  Al Quran Surah Al Inshira (94; 5-6; transl. M. Asad)

Allah tells us that with every hardship comes ease, but do we experience our lives like this?  Why does the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate send us hardship? And where is the ease that He promises us?

What is a hardship? It is a situation, condition, person or endeavour that we find difficult or painful; something we cannot understand, control or accept.  Something that causes us misery, anxiety and suffering because it does not conform to our desire, to our agenda, to how we want things to be.  In other words, the hardship refuses to submit to us.  

Why?  Because the hardship is here to teach us something very useful.  It is here to teach **us** how to submit. Which in the meaning of Islam, which is what we are here to do – surrender, submit.

The muslimah, the musalmaan is the one in submission.

The greater the hardship, the more profound is the potential for submission.  

And the greater our suffering if we refuse, if we resist, if we do not submit.

As soon as we submit, which is the purpose of the hardship, there is ease.  Acceptance brings immediate relief and calm.   And once we stop asking why and trying to change or control what does not lie in our hands, the difficulty -- the situation, condition, person, endeavour – begins to unfold.  

Once we stop resisting, we realize that we have the strength and have been provided all the help we need to get through the hardship.  

The hardship has been made easy for us to bear.  

And over time, as we continue to endure patiently in submission, we begin to see what a blessing it is.  

In fact, the greater the hardship, the greater the ease Allah provides in the form of help and strength.  And the greater the hardship, the greater the blessing at its heart.

And Allah knows best.

image: with thanks via Iraj Jahanshahi