The Greatest Planner

Lately, I heard a sentence that quietly shattered the way I see expectations and acceptance.

It also made me realize how weak my faith still is.

The sentence was:

"If Allah answers my prayer, I'm happy. But if He doesn't answer my prayer, I'm even happier, because the first is my choice, while the second is His choice."

— Ali ibn Abi Talib

At first, I couldn't understand the logic behind it.

For how could the absence of what we desire become a greater joy?

Then I realized:

When God gives me what I ask for, life simply follows the path I imagined.

But when He does not, life follows the path He has written.

There is no greater blessing than walking the path written by the Greatest Planner.

There is no greater peace than knowing that the Author of destiny writes a different ending than the one I desperately tried to compose myself.

For my expectations are born from a mind that knows so little.

I only know the pain of today,

the longing of this moment,

the dreams that my eyes can see.

But He knows the storms I have not yet encountered,

the doors that must remain closed,

the people who must leave,

and the blessings that would destroy me if they arrived too soon.

How arrogant of me to grieve over a single page,

while He is the One who said, “Be,” and it came into existence—

the One who commanded the Pen to inscribe every destiny within the Lauh al-Mahfuz.

Perhaps some prayers are answered with “yes.”

And some are answered with mercy disguised as silence.

Perhaps one day I will stand in a place I could never have imagined and realize:

The things I cried for were too small.

The things I lost were necessary.

The things I called misfortunes were merely roads leading me somewhere better.

And perhaps, on that day, I will weep once more—

not because God did not give me what I wanted,

but because I spent so much time mourning the loss of my own plans,

while Heaven was quietly preparing something far greater.

For my expectations can only see a single candle in the darkness.

But God sees the sunrise.

“The tragedy is not that God did not fulfill our wishes.

The tragedy is that we often trust our own limited vision 

more than the One who sees the beginning and the end at once.”