Dear God,
If I have a family of my own one day, I will protect them with all my heart, ya Allah. I will make sure they are loved and always be protected in all aspects of life, insyaallah. I might not be ready for it now but I hope and pray that You will bless me with a loving spouse and beautiful children, who will be the coolness of my eyes.
A few days ago, I was reading the verses of surah an-Naml from the Quran. The verses were about Prophet Sulaiman's gift of the ability to talk to animals (you know, like Dr Doolittle, hehe) . So, one day Prophet Sulaiman has commanded his army of humans, jinns and the birds and they have respectfully made a line-up of themselves. When they were about to reach a valley of ants, one of the ants has called upon their army to retreat into their colonies for fear of being trampled over by Prophet Sulaiman and his armies.
Upon hearing this, Prophet Sulaiman smiled and laughed (imagine that!) and made a beautiful, beautiful prayer. And this is what I wanted to share with you.
"My Lord, enable me to be grateful for Your favor which You have bestowed upon me and upon my parents and to do righteousness of which You approve.
And admit me by Your mercy into [the ranks of] Your righteous servants."
The Malay translation will be this.
"Ya Tuhanku, anugerahkanlah aku ilham untuk tetap mensyukuri nikmat-Mu yang telah Engkau anugerahkan kepadaku dan kepada kedua orang tuaku dan agar aku mengerjakan kebajikan yang Engkau redhai;
dan masukkanlah aku dengah rahmat-Mu ke dalam golongan hamba-hambaMu yang soleh"
Ya Allah, this is so... it comes from a place of such love and kindness and gratefulness I feel. I mean, let's re-visit, anugerahkanlah aku ilham untuk tetap mensyukuri nikmatMu. Like it or not, we are blessed so much in our lives that sometimes we look past them and not be grateful enough about it. This verse is asking us to be given the ability to always (untuk tetap) bersyukur because we tend to forget, especially when we are abundantly blessed.
May we always be that and may we always be striving to be a better person every day.