Thank you Allah!

I dreamt that I went to Heaven and an angel was showing me around. We
walked side-by-side inside a large workroom filled with angels.

My angel guide stopped in front of the first section and said, "This
Is the Receiving Section. Here, all petitions to Allah said in prayer
are Received."

I looked around in this area, and it was terribly busy with so many
angels sorting out petitions written on voluminous paper sheets and
scraps from people all over the world.

Then we moved on down a long corridor until we reached the second section.

The angel then said to me, "This is the Packaging and Delivery
Section. Here, the graces and blessings the people asked for are
processed and delivered to the living persons who asked for them."

I noticed again how busy it was there. There were many angels working
hard at that station, since so many blessings had been requested and
were being packaged for delivery to Earth

Finally at the farthest end of the long corridor we stopped at the
Door of a very small station To my great surprise, only one angel was
Seated there, idly doing nothing. "This is the Acknowledgment
Section," My angel friend quietly admitted to me. He seemed
embarrassed "How Is it that there is no work going on here?" I asked.

"So sad," the angel sighed. "After people receive the blessings that
they asked For, very few send back acknowledgments ."

"How does one acknowledge Allah"s blessings?" I asked.

"Simple," the angel answered. Just say, "Thank you, Allah."

Salaat and the Beauty of Nature

A Muslim pilgrim prays near where the Hiraa cave is located, at the top of Noor Mountain on the outskirts of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2009. According to tradition, Islam's Prophet Mohammed received his first message to preach Islam while he was praying in the cave.

Source: An email from a friend

Drinking Problem

Love in Marriage

During one of our seminars, a woman asked a common question. She said, " How do I know if I married the right person ?"

I noticed that there was a large man sitting next to her so I said, " It Depends. Is that your husband?"

In all seriousness, she answered " How do you know?"

Let me answer this question because the chances are good that it's Weighing on your mind.

Here's the answer.

EVERY relationship has a cycle. In the beginning, you fell in love with Your spouse. You anticipated their call, wanted their touch, and liked Their idiosyncrasies.

Falling in love with your spouse wasn't hard. In fact, it was a Completely natural and spontaneous experience. You didn't have to DO anything. That's why it's called "falling" in love... Because it's happening TO YOU.

People in love sometimes say, " I was swept of my feet." Think about the Imagery of that _expression. It implies that you were just standing There; doing nothing, and then something came along and happened TO YOU.

Falling in love is easy. It's a passive and spontaneous experience.

But after a few years of marriage, the euphoria of love fades. It's the Natural cycle of EVERY relationship. Slowly but surely, phone calls Become a bother ( if they come at all), touch is not always welcome ( when it happens), and your spouse's idiosyncrasies, instead of being cute, drive you nuts.

The symptoms of this stage vary with every relationship, but if you Think about your marriage, you will notice a dramatic difference between the initial stage when you were in love and a much duller or even angry subsequent stage.

At this point, you and/or your spouse might start asking, " Did I marry The right person?" And as you and your spouse reflect on the euphoria of The love you once had, you may begin to desire that experience with someone else.

This is when marriages breakdown. People blame their spouse for their Unhappiness and look outside their marriage for fulfillment.

Extramarital fulfillment comes in all shapes and sizes. Infidelity is The most obvious. But sometimes people turn to work, church, a hobby, a friendship, excessive TV, or abusive substances.

But the answer to this dilemma does NOT lie outside your marriage. It lies within it.

I'm not saying that you couldn't fall in love with someone else. You Could.

And TEMPORARILY you'd feel better. But you'd be in the same situation a few years later. Because ( listen carefully to this):

THE KEY TO SUCCEEDING IN MARRIAGE IS NOT FINDING THE RIGHT PERSON; IT'S LEARNING TO LOVE THE PERSON YOU FOUND.

SUSTAINING love is not a passive or spontaneous experience. It'll NEVER just happen to you. You can't "find " LASTING love. You have to "make" it day in and day out. That's why we have the _expression " the labor of love."

Because it takes time, effort, and energy. And most importantly, it Takes WISDOM. You have to know WHAT TO DO to make your marriage work.

Make no mistake about it. Love is NOT a mystery. There are specific Things you can do ( with or without your spouse ) to succeed with your marriage.

Just as there are physical laws of the universe ( such as gravity),

There are also laws for relationships. Just as the right diet and exercise Program makes you physically stronger, certain habits in your Relationship WILL make your marriage stronger. It's a direct cause and effect. If you know and apply the laws, the results are predictable. ..

Love in marriage is indeed a " decision"... Not just a feeling.

[Source: An email from a friend]

The Mayonnaise Jar ...

When  things in your life seem almost too much to handle,
When 24  hours in a day is not enough;
remember the mayonnaise jar.

A professor stood before his philosophy  class
and  had some items in front of him..
 

When the class began, wordlessly,
he  picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar
and start to fill it with  golf balls.

He then asked the students if the jar was full.
They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and  poured
it into the jar. He shook the jar lightly.
The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls.

He then asked the students again
if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand
and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.
He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded
With an unanimous  'yes.'

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the  table
and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively
filling the empty space between the sand.
The students laughed.

'Now,' said the  professor, as the laughter subsided,
'I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life.
 
The golf balls are the important things - God,  family,
children, health, friends, and favorite passions
Things  that if everything else was lost
and  only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the things that matter like your job, house, and car.

The sand is everything else --
The small stuff.

'If you put the sand into the jar  first,' he continued,
'there is no room for the pebbles or the golf  balls.
The same goes for life.

If you spend all your time and energy  on the small stuff,
You will never have room for the things that  are
important to you.

So...

'Take care of the golf balls first --
The things that really  matter.
Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.'

One of the students raised her hand
and inquired what the coffee represented.

The  professor smiled.

'I'm glad you asked'.

It just goes to show you that  no matter how full your life may seem,
there's always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend.' 

Coffee or Cup

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to
visit their old university professor.
Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.

Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and
returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups -
porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive,
some exquisite -telling them to help themselves to hot
coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said:
"If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up,
leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is but normal for you
to want only the best for yourselves that is the source of your problems and stress.
What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup,
but you consciously went for the best cups and
were eyeing each other's cups.

Now if life is coffee, then the jobs, money and position in society are
the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, but the quality
of Life doesn't change.

Some times, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the
coffee in it."

So, don't let the cups drive you... Enjoy the coffee instead!

A Memo from God

Source: An email from a friend