Guess of Allah

Hajj is around the corner. It's in the air. The spirit is in those who understand the meaning and wisdom of sacrifice. 

My husband and I have performed our hajj ten years ago together with my mother in law. How I wish I can do it again. Perform my hajj better than the last one. But there are thousands and thousands of people in the waiting list. I'm just thankful that Allah has chosen my husband and me to be his guests when we were below 40 years old as we targeted. 

It was hard trying to save every cent we can back then. We were struggling in our career. We had our saving but when we moved to the house that we bought to avoid paying rent, we had to puncture our saving to do the basic thing to make the house comfortable. Our saving was depleting. Then we got the official letter from Tabung Haji stating that we were chosen to go that year and we were given about 2 months to complete the amount of payment in our account. I was both elated and devastated. Happy that I was chosen but sad that our saving was way, way from enough. Beside the two of us, both my inlaws were chosen too. We had just enough money for three, not four. I was the natural choice to be left behind. We went to Tabung Haji to ask for extra time to fill up my account but the answer was no.  My husband's office mate offered us a loan but we rejected it because that would mean we can't afford it and thus we are not eligible to go yet actually. After that I was like a living dead; doing my every chores but my mind was somewhere else.

I was going through my file cabinet in search of a document when I noticed my kids' Tabung Haji saving books. Looking through inside, I noticed that each one of my four kids had more than one thousand in their accounts. Feeling ecstatic, I called up my four kids and we had a heart to heart discussion. I explained my predicament  to them and they were glad that they can help by financing me with their saving. I managed to fill up my account just in time. Alhamdulillah, praise be to Allah. But my father in law died of heart attack during Ramadhan that year and we had to postponed our hajj for one year so that my mother in law can finished her moaning period of 4 months and 10 days as prescribed by Islam.

When we set our heart to perform our hajj and we think about it every day, Allah will make it happen in one way or another. I have heard lots of story about poor people who always pray to Allah to grant them their wish to perform their hajj and out of the blue some rich samaritans will financed them. It not a matter whether we have the money or not but rather how much we want to perform our hajj. Allah will choose those who will be His guess, not us. So always pray to Allah and save every single cent if we really want it hard enough. May Allah grant our wish to be His guess. Allah humma amin.

May Allah bless us all.

Deplete  -  diminish in number or quantity: supplies are depleting fast.

 Elate - in high spirits; exultant or proud: the ladies returned with elate and animated faces.

Devastate  - cause (someone) severe and overwhelming shock or grief: she was devastated by the loss of Damian.

 Predicament - a difficult, unpleasant, or embarrassing situation.