Letters from Ummi

You used to feel it. Now you stand and pray and hear only your own voice, and you wonder if you are talking to a wall.

Listen to an old woman. I have had years like that. Years where the words came out flat and the heart stayed at the door. I did not stop praying. That is the whole secret, and it is not a feeling. It is the standing up.

Allah did not ask you to feel Him. He asked you to turn. The turning is the prayer. The sweetness is a gift He gives when He chooses, not a wage He owes you.

So tonight, do the small thing. Wash. Stand. Say the words even cold, even fast, even while your mind wanders off mid-sentence. Then sit a moment and give Him one true sentence about your day, no performance, nothing dressed up.

Faith is not a fire you keep lit. It is a house you keep returning to, in the dark, when no one seems to answer the knock. Keep returning.

You are not far. You are only quiet. And quiet is not the same as gone.