Losing a False Heaven

As salaam alaikum,

I remember, of my relating to MTQ, I thought this song, which I've recently started to listen to again, was very appropriate.

"Oh, If I ever lose this heaven / If I ever, ever ever lose this heaven / Oh, I'll never be the same..."

It's The Average White Band, "If I Ever Lose this Heaven." I thought that if he was gone from my life, I'd never be the same, I wouldn't know what to do with myself, that I'd never know another happiness so great.

Over time, I got over that, and it actually wasn't the worst thing ever.

The week that my ex was breaking up with me, I told one of my best friends that I didn't think I wanted to live if he weren't in my life. And while I still feel some of the burn of the breakup, I certainly know how to live without him and look forward to living far away from him.

These relationships, in fact, were not Heaven. Not Jannah that we learn about in the Qur'an and Sunnah. Not any Heaven any of our major theologies have doctrine about. It was a false heaven, a heaven the likes of that created by the Average White Band, covered by Quincy Jones and sung by Minnie Ripperton. It's an earthly heaven, not the one that insha'Allah I'm destined to know as long as I submit myself to God, and all that this entails...

And really, there's one more false heaven that I need to let go of. It's the prototype. It's my future husband himself.

This letting go will be free of tantrums, free of of emotional upheavals, free of tears. It's caused me nothing but pain and anxiety, and I'm letting him go.

And it's not a sad ending at all. It's a new beginning.



I dissected this all when I was talking to my friend, another one of my best friends, and she was in need. We got to switch places. She expressed some of the fears I've had about this new phase of my life...residency and all that comes with it. She was worrying about being single in a place where everyone was family-oriented, and wondered if she would make any friends. As I calmed her down, she reflected about how her anxiety must be how I feel about relationships. Like time was moving slowly, and that it as excruciating. I told her it was. And somehow, God had mercy on me in that moment, and I was in a state of grace, a state of clarity, and I said something that's made more sense to me than anything ever has...

"I'm not sure if there is anyone who completely trusts God when there are big changes in their lives. And when they are fine, maybe they are putting their trust in the other person, and not God. We are all afraid to varying degrees. We want to stay where we are or go one place when God is taking us somewhere else.

 

"I know that's my problem right now. I'm placing my [faith] in a future husband that doesn't exist instead of God. Frankly. That way, I don't think it'll ever work out for me. That's inviting myself to get hurt. Other people may place their faith in their spouses or future spouses, but I think what I'm supposed to be learning here is...I shouldn't. Not me. By sumbitting myself to God, and taking those steps, and practicing my religion, I've made a bond with God that I'm never going to break. Even at my lowest points of faith this year, I still pray. That connection is there... God isn't going to let me mess up now.

 

"When you walk to God, He runs to you. He's running to me...he's not going to let me place faith in a man. Once I get to the point of trusting in Him completely on all matters of my life, including whether and to whom I get married... It will happen. I know this...but it's a struggle getting there. 

 

"I know this. There's no other way that this is something I most wanted and I'm not getting it. In a sense, I'll never get it. I won't get a husband who, for much of my life, was replacing a key part of my belief in God. God has something else, better for me. God has something else, better for you."

 

And this is the truth.

 

I always say that having that good marriage is something I've always wanted. That is not true. Before that, when I was a child, I wanted to have a strong faith. I wanted to be one of the few who had strong faith in God at a relatively young age and carry that through my lifetime. Somehow along the way, I got sidetracked, and placed a portion of that faith that was only supposed to be for God into a non-existent human being. That's worse than idolatry!

 

No more of that. The love between spouses is indeed a mercy from God. We were created to love one another and fulfill both earthly as well as some spiritual needs. But I will no longer sacrifice my good faith in God, the strength in my religion for a man who does not exist.

 

Because he doesn't. My future husband as one to have faith in, to hope for, to hope to carry me through life does not exist, and God has been merciful and protected me from men who would want to be that for me at an age when I was not old enough to discern the difference.

 

So no, this is no longer the thing I most want in life. Because it doesn't exist. If God wills for me, He will provide me with a husband who in spirit is fit to be my mate in Heaven, the real one. If it is God's will. But if I don't place my trust in God once and for all in this matter...it's going to be like praying to a thing that cannot help or hurt me. Nothing's going to happen.

 

I've been wondering if there is something wrong with me. There isn't. I've been wondering if I've been doing anything wrong, and I haven't. I needed, instead, to wonder what can I do more right, and this is it. I have to let go of this false heaven, with this false god, the false god of my future husband that I looked upon meeting with more anticipation than meeting God Himself.

 

No more. I will work, pray, build my faith, and who God intends for me will be right there, and that's how it will be.

 

In other news, I finally watched the end of "Big Love." I cried like a baby! That totally made up for the bootleg ending of "Fina Estampa." No spoilers, but I loved the ending. I loved their message about faith. One of the last things Bill said was, "Our families, our wives...that's where our faith comes from. Not the other way around." Such a masterful series...especially once they got over writing sex scenes.

 

That may seem to contradict my entry, but I don't think it does. No more cult of the future husband for me. No more cult of the false heaven that is love without God's blessing. What God allows is what He blesses for me. No more future husband.

I can now concentrate on submitting myself to God's will...