By: Aliaa Fathy
When you are sick, only you feel your pain, and perhaps those who have suffered like you, and the closest people to you from family and friends. Life may surprise you with sincere people, perhaps you have not known them for a long time, but they have become brothers, friends, and family in a short period.
When you fall ill, life seems to stop for you. The laws of the universe seem to break down.
You gaze at the walls of your room as if to ask them, “How long will I remain imprisoned within you?” and you long for an answer.
When you fall ill, it’s just you, the walls, your sickbed, the pain, and the helplessness, as if you’re trapped in an eternal night with no dawn.
You are sensitive and easily affected, and your tears overwhelm you at all times, so they take control of the situation.
You wish you could fight weakness with the weapon of determination and hope, and you try, so either your determination will overcome you, or you will surrender to despair and weakness.
And perhaps you are in the middle, between contentment and surrender, between patience and exhaustion from trying, and you wish you could just sleep, to rest away from any feeling, even if your sleep lasts for months without waking up, to rest from the troubles of life, and perhaps you wish for eternal sleep at times.
Time always stops at moments of waiting, as if it were a reality whose clock hands have suddenly stopped. Waiting is always a silent killer… a slow killer…
All your hopes will suddenly abandon you, your sense of optimism will leave you, and you will look at everything around you without spirit or life, even if you try to resist and do otherwise and live through anything, even if it is through a simple act that you write.
You know very well that these may be tough times and they will pass, as is the way of the world, nothing lasts forever, and perhaps they will become a memory tomorrow that you will remember as achievements in your life, and remember with them that you went through difficult moments in which God tested you out of love to compensate you and you triumphed over all pain and difficulties.
But against your will, feelings of helplessness, weakness, and surrender may often overcome you. You remain caught between these two states, uncertain of your fate. Yet, you trust in your Lord’s mercy, hoping that all you endure will be an expiation for your sins, that God will place it on the scale of your good deeds, and that you will succeed in this test, remaining patient, grateful, and content with all your heart, always remembering God.
