My favourite day of the week

Wednesday is my favourite day of the week. I am usually utterly exhausted every Wednesday afternoon/evening, but Alhamdullillah this is still my favourite day of the week. The reason for this is because Wednesday is the day we have our ladies workshops at the Mosque. It’s part of my schedule already, the rest of the week I can do whatever other work I need to. My work includes counselling, psychological assessments and research and once again Alhamdullillah (All praise is due to Allah) that I am able to schedule things the way I want to so that I have time for everything. Okay, sure, I don’t get as much money as other people in the psychology profession with the same qualifications as I do, but I am very happy with the way things are for me. See if I get a full time job then that means I won’t be able to do things like our ladies workshops and that will not be good at all.

You may be wondering why it’s such a big deal or what’s so special about these workshops, well I’ll tell you. Once a week myself, and a group of ladies get together and run workshops for ladies in our community. The group we belong to is called; “Islamic Awareness Group”, we have a social worker, two learned Islamic teachers, a lady with a background in education, and me. With the will of Allah we have managed to do some good programmes to enhance the lives of Muslim women. We do things like parenting skills, marriage and dealing with issues in marriage, self reformation and so on. The beautiful thing about this is that we get to interact with our fellow Muslim sisters and at the same time we get to witness their growth and improvement as they implement the skills and teachings that they learn each week. SubhanAllah (Glory be to Allah); It’s wonderful when someone tells us that ; “I’ve tried this and it works”, or “my husband can really see the difference in me, he encourages me to come for this.” This is really rewarding, but the most rewarding thing is that we are doing this only for the pleasure of Allah Almighty and this makes the world of difference.

It’s actually funny when I think about how I got involved in this group. This group started out before I joined them, there were three ladies at the time and I happened to know one of them from some work we did together in the past. At the time a friend of mine (a fellow psychologist) and I were doing independent work and when I heard about these workshops I contacted this lady I knew with the intention of networking. That was all I intended, I thought that if we could share contacts and so on then it would make things easier. Allah had a different plan, and undoubtedly Allah’s plan was the better one.

So Islamic Awareness Group asked me to help them out, do a few sessions for their new workshop, which was on marriage in Islam, and I agreed to do two sessions. That went on for a while, and then we decided that we needed a new workshop, so we began a self reformation workshop. After a while the lady I initially knew from the group had to leave and they asked me to join in full time. So here I am today. Every Wednesday is workshop day and do I enjoy it (Alhamdullillah).

One of our Islamic teacher’s explained that we should purify our intentions and make sure that we do things only for the pleasure of Allah because then whatever we do becomes a form of worship. She said to us that every time we leave our homes on Wednesdays we should make the intention that we are going out for the pleasure of Allah, meeting our sisters for the pleasure of Allah, learning for the pleasure of Allah, and listening to the words and teachings of Quraan and Hadith purely for the pleasure of Allah. She told us that this would make a huge difference and she was right!

I look forward to going out on a Wednesday and I always feel extra happy on this day. Sometimes with my other work I feel fed up and tired of doing the work, other times I don’t feel like leaving home to go and work, especially when I have to go very early in the morning. But it’s never like that on a Wednesday, on Wednesday’s I can feel the barakah (blessings) of Allah and I know that everything will work out well. All my chores for the day, everything always works out well on a Wednesday. Once again SubhanAllah!

I guess this is a clear example of how even the work you do can become a form of worship, and truly when you do something only for the pleasure of Allah then you can see and feel the difference. You may not always get paid for what you do, but the reward you get (in this earth already) far surpasses any monetary reward or any other worldly reward. SubhanAllah.

I am so fortunate that Allah has chosen me to be a part of these workshops and a part of the Islamic Awareness Group. My fellow sisters in the group are the nicest group of women I’ve met. They are down to earth, humble and easy going and I love them all for that. It makes life easier when working with people who are so easy to get along with and so understandable. But I think that when you do things for the pleasure of Allah then you forget about yourself and that’s when you are able to accept many things without being offended.

Alhamdullillah for Wednesdays, Alhamdullillah that I have been given a chance to share the little knowledge that I have, Alhamdullillah for showing me that life can be wonderful when your intentions are correct. The truth is that I have learnt far more than the ladies who come for the workshops. I have learnt from my fellow facilitators and from every single woman who attends our workshops.

More than once I’ve been offered a full timejob, but this would mean that I would have to give up Wednesday workshops. I couldn’t bear to do this (through Allah’s guidance), I feel like that would be giving up a wonderful gift, only for material and selfish reasons. Simply put, I can’t really imagine my life without these workshops, and it’s all because Allah has put barakah in them. So yes, Wednesday is my favourite day of the week. How long this will last Allah alone knows, but for now I appreciate whatever I get and I am happy.

All Praise is due to Allah who definitely knows what is best for all His servants. Glory be to Allah, the Greatest, the Most Kind!

Image from here