An experience I'd like to share

Yesterday i was reading Surat Al-'Ahqaf. This verse stuck out to me.

Sahih International
And We have enjoined upon man, to his parents, good treatment. His mother carried him with hardship and gave birth to him with hardship, and his gestation and weaning [period] is thirty months. [He grows] until, when he reaches maturity and reaches [the age of] forty years, he says, "My Lord, enable me to be grateful for Your favor which You have bestowed upon me and upon my parents and to work righteousness of which You will approve and make righteous for me my offspring. Indeed, I have repented to You, and indeed, I am of the Muslims."




Later, after Maghreb, i went to visit my mother conscious of the verse. Before i went to bed, i re-read the verse.

Today on my lunch break from work, i was walking to my apartment. There is a little cafe next to the building with an outdoor eating area and there was a man sitting there. As i approached, he suddenly began talking to me. The man was, for lack of a better term, slow. He talked to me about his new phone, and some other things for a few minutes.

Then he started telling me about how his hand, the right one, was crippled but he still worked. He also kept telling me he wasn't retarded. As a term this may not be very appropriate but he was just trying to get his point across. Anyway without dragging on, he went on to say something very interesting.

He said (paraphrase - with quotes), "You know i ain't retarded. Some people, they're in their mother's bellies and they grow up in there retarded. Like you (me) ... you ain't retarded. You grew up in your mother's belly and you are normal ... not retarded."

I just stood there, kind of shocked thinking about this verse that i had read yesterday. In my mind, i started thanking Allah for my life.

How often when we go online, or drive, or any mundane task we do ... do we really thank Allah? This man was slow in his mind, crippled in his right hand ... but willing and able to teach a complete stranger (me) about how grateful i should be to Allah. I asked him if he believed in God, and he said yes - he had been talking about the Bible. I told him i'm a muslim and we shook hands.

This experience really makes me want to always thank Allah and send salawat on Prophet Muhammad . How blessed are we to be muslim? How blessed were we to born this way or guided to reversion in other cases.

And it reminds me to be so grateful for the parents i have and to watch myself in their presence.