Held In the Change
Soulful Smiles 01
﷽
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful
Assalāmu alaykum (Peace be upon you) my beloved. I pray you are well and in the best state of mind, body and heart.
Last week we welcomed our new space together. This week is about what this space was always made for. Welcome to the first proper edition of Soulful Smiles under its new home: The Smiling Soul. From here, this is where we meet. Every edition, a reflection. Every letter, a small returning.
I’ve been sitting with change lately, not just the kind you see from the outside, but the quiet kind. The kind that moves beneath the surface, subtle yet persistent, like water carving its path through stone. You wake up one day and realize that life has shifted, even if you can’t quite name what’s different.
There’s a verse in Surah Al-Baqarah that always hums in my chest during times like this: “Allah does not burden a soul more than what it can bear.” [2:286]
And yet, there are days when I whisper back, Ya Allah, I feel like I’m carrying more than I can hold.
But then I remember: it’s not always about the weight of what we carry, but about the One who carries us through it.
Lately, I’ve been learning that faith isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about choosing trust even when the road ahead is blurry. Trusting that Allah’s timing isn’t delayed, it’s deliberate. That whatever leaves is clearing space for something better. That unanswered du’as aren’t refusals, but redirections.
There’s a moment in the Seerah that often comes to mind when I think of delayed outcomes: the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah. On the surface, it looked like a loss. Many companions struggled to understand why the Prophet ﷺagreed to its terms. But it turned out to be one of the greatest openings for Islam.
I think about that when my own heart wrestles with outcomes I didn’t choose.
“Say: Nothing will ever befall us except what Allah has destined for us. He is our Protector. So in Allah let the believers put their trust.” [Surah At-Tawbah, 9:51]
We plan. We hope. And sometimes, those plans unravel before our eyes. But the unraveling is not always ruin. Sometimes, it’s return. Sometimes, it’s Allah drawing us nearer through detours we didn’t ask for.
One of the most grounding reminders I’ve been clinging to is the du’a: “O Allah, give us life when life is better for us, and give us death when death is better for us.”
There’s a surrender in those words that doesn’t come easy. A surrender that acknowledges I don’t know what’s best, but You do. I find myself whispering it more lately, not from despair, but from a desire to live aligned with what brings me closer to Him, even when it looks nothing like what I imagined.
I think of Sayyidah Asiyah, standing alone, tortured, yet steady in her request: “My Lord! Build for me near You a house in Paradise…” [66:11]
She didn’t ask for relief. She asked for nearness. There’s resilience in that kind of surrender.
Change has a way of stripping us down to our most honest selves. And maybe that’s the mercy of it. It brings us back to the core, to the du’a uttered in frustration or the tears we thought we buried. It pulls us closer to the only thing that doesn’t shift: Allah.
If you’re navigating change, whether it’s loud and visible or quiet and internal, I pray you find softness within it. I pray you allow yourself to mourn what’s leaving while trusting in what’s unfolding. I pray you trust that you are being held, even when it doesn’t feel that way.
Maybe the fog itself is divine. Maybe not having clarity is the clarity. Maybe this season isn’t a detour, it’s the exact road that leads you home.
May your heart find ease in the transition. May your du’as turn into openings. May the change hold you, and may you be held by the One who never changes. Amin ya Rabb.
With a Smile,
Ibtisam
The Smiling Soul
