First Day

It was first day back at the office today.

My secretary Shareen SMSd me this morning that her uncle had passed on in JB and she would not be coming in today.
I was sluggish at work the whole day - I guess it is the long break combined with too much korban and aqiqah meat over the last few days.
There goes my vegequarian diet.
It will take me at least 2 weeks to flush my system out.
There was a pile of catchup emails to do, and 2 dozen or so staff appraisals that I had to clear by tomorrow, and something for my input to be sent up to Minister asap.
It was a hectic day, but alhamdulillah it went well.

Yesterday was Omar's first day at school, which was why I was not at the office.
He was so self-confident that I almost didnt have to be there.
But kids being kids, he did tell me later on that he was sad when he didnt see me at recess (I was late).

I love my boys so much, they are so loving.
I thank God that I have such love in my family.
Most people do not realise that it is the most precious thing to have in this world. A loving family for this world and a love for God for the next.
I am thankful that I know that.

I believe that parenting is an essential part of spiritual development. In order to learn to achieve the difficult love for the physically absent, invisible God that you are not able to conceive even in your mind's eye, you have to take baby steps.
You learn to love your parents, then your spouse. Then your children.
The relationships are different.
And in the love for one's children is the noblest of love because it is a love that is giving, not receiving.

Ever wondered why all children are born with an instinct to love their parents?

I have heard it taught to me before a long time ago that it is because, being closer to their birth into this world, they carry over with them into this world the innate nature or fitrah of love of the loving, kind, parental God that they were used to in the Paradise before their souls are placed in their mothers' wombs.

The longer they stay in this world, the more they are exposed to it, the more it makes them forget the divine love from which they came.

I personally believe that it is the reason why we are encouraged to bear children or raise them, because they remind us of the time when we were children of God in the gardens of Paradise, and by becoming parents we learn to adopt divine qualities of mercy, kindness, gentleness, love, providing, protecting, etc. In parenting children we open multiple pathways for us to realise more of the 99 names of Allah than in any other thing we can seek to do in life.

And is it not one of the reasons we mortals are placed in this temporal world - to realise the divine qualities that are planted in us all, waiting to be uncovered - and realising the divine in our own selves?