Ramadan’s coming and I am SO not ready

Everyone’s talking about the coming of Ramadan, their preparations for it, countdown plans etc, and here I am, hardly being able to  focus on my Salah, struggling to ‘feel’ the spirituality with this very low Iman. NOW? I ask my heart. When Ramadan is just a month away and you become SO dead, O Heart?

I cannot imagine waking up on the first day of Ramadan having myself and my soul magically fixed into spirituality, by the chaining of the shayateen and the arrival of this blessed month. To an extent, it happens. But I’ve had Ramadan’s pass by with my heart going nowhere, and me sitting on the Masjid stairs wondering why am I not feeling like reading the Qur’an and immersing myself in it in my free time, while those around me are so engrossed in doing all possible great deeds of acts, be it even in sitting in halaqas after fajr, to learn tafaseer or attending an event to spend the day with orphans.

Every act of ibadah, comes wholeheartedly only with the preparation of the heart first. How then can I be sitting idly now waiting to sight the crescent moon next month to feel a spiritual high suddenly?

But perhaps, that’s what Ramadan is for. For the dead hearts to come alive, inshaAllah.

Here are my very little, very simple, pre-Ramadan plans inshaAllah.

•  Practice every Salah like its a meal to be prepared for Ramadan. The more number of times its cooked properly, the better it gets for the final presentation. Focus on improving on each salah, such that every next prayer is only better than the previous, inshaAllah. This- By constantly remembering the beauty of talking and connecting to Him, and the fear of His anger for not taking it seriously.
• Make it a habit to sit after prayer in my prayer mat, for atleast 5 mins or more, in Zikr. Atleast for one prayer a day, inshaAllah.
• Make it a permanent habit to do the Morning and evening Adhkar.
• A page or more of the Qur’an a day. Perhaps alternating each day; one for contemplating on the meanings, another for enjoying reciting with proper tajweed as a revision inshaAllah.

That’s about it.

Last year, while everyone around me had printed lists of to-do’s for Ramadan, and plans and goals to reach,  I had only one Ramadan resolution – to revive my connection with Allah SWT as I knew it was weak. The rest of the ‘plans’ in my empty calendar just fell in place. There was no fixed schedule. No fixed tasks like tahajjud, charity etc. There was only one constant: my effort to look at every act during the day by analyzing ‘how could I make this act beloved to Allah swt’ or ‘How would this act get me closer to Him’.  That made an incredible amount of difference to how I viewed each day with the normal happenings of the household, subhanAllah.

This year my resolution is to add just one more to last year’s- to revive my connection with the Qur’an and my dependancy on it. insha’Allah.

These are  *hardly few things* I could do inshaAllah:

• Listen to the Qur’an often..
• Make time for the Qur’an no matter what. Read it as much as I can inshaAllah, as long as I can contemplate on the verses. I plan to recite/hear it even in the labour ward hehe iA
• Revision of all previous memorization, so I can recite it while praying (since, women don’t have a place to go for taraweeh here, I’ll have to do it on my own inshaAllah)
• Increase in my secret conversations (duas) with Him, iA 😉

And that’s about it inshaAllah.

I pray we don’t overlook the significance of Ramadan in our lives, and give it as much importance as it deserves, and come out of it purified, for our dead hearts are in need of it.

Allahumma Ballighna Ramadan ❤

Just sharing for the khair 🙂