We don’t drink coffee at home. My mum made it once or twice when I was younger and I remember not liking the smell or the sip I had so I’ve never wanted it. Wait, I recently accidentally bought an iced caramel latte, does that count as coffee? It was disgusting, I was kinda gutted to have wasted that £3 something and I wondered if people actually spend this amount of money on coffee and hot drink every day? It sounds expensive.

My point is I don’t really know anything about coffee. I know that’s weird.

A few years ago when I was in sixth form when my friends and I had the same free period, usually a Friday morning, we’d meet up in the canteen and perhaps get a snack or hot drink. Once my friend got a coffee, took the lid off, put some sugar in and started stirring. She stopped stirring and said something like “look I love how it keeps stirring on its own after you stop.” I looked and it indeed was stirring itself; pretty cool, I thought.

Not long afterwards I came across a blog in which the person was talking about Ramadan and he used coffee as analogy of how shaytan affects our life even during Ramadan. Just like the coffee stirring itself after a person stops, we keep sinning after shaytan has influenced our behaviour. He’s led us astray and we just turn his work into our own habits. This analogy really put shaytan’s relationship with us in perspective for me however it wouldn’t have been very beneficial had I not seen that one coffee.

And so there is significance in the insignificant.

That little thing, a moment I shared with my friend just hanging out, provided insight into a lesson I’ll never forget (insha’Allah).

I think so much, if not all, that we do and we come across is connected in some way but so often we either overlook the small details or simply don’t have the knowledge and foresight to see the bigger picture. This is why I love recognising duas that have been answered but not in the way I may have expected. I love noticing the connections and of course I love that happiness and strengthening of faith after understanding Allah is listening to me.

I remember talking to Ya’qub on here he had requested a dua after fajr, so the next day I told him I’d done dua and asked if whatever he was doing went well. He said my dua must have worked because it did, but then I realised that we were in different time zones and I had done dua after he needed it. He replied saying Allah is outside of time and not constrained by it so He knew what dua I would do and it still could have been accepted! And that’s another important lesson I learnt!

It’s like we can only see microscopic jigsaw pieces whilst Allah has the completed puzzle in front of Him.

It takes time for us to not only find the correct pieces but to also join them together and to be able to visualise the various colours, shapes and details of the picture that our life’s puzzle creates; the good, the bad, the lessons, everything. For example as Muslims we are encouraged to make dua asking for the blessings of Allah but because we can’t see the bigger picture it is often only after we have gone through an ordeal that we can recognise the blessing in it. May we always remember Allah is the All-Knowing, the All-Seeing , the All Aware, the Controller, the Watchful, the Timeless.

(Going back to significance in the insignificant – the 12 yr old me who found a copy of The Revival in the prayer at mosque was never to know that a few years later I’d look for an article in the mag and find The Revival website and be sitting at stupid hours writing out my thoughts for strangers! But if it wasn’t for picking up that copy of the magazine I wouldn’t be here right now.)