Al Haleem.\u00a0 I struggle with parenting and \u00a0this beautiful characteristic of Allah SWT, this name that blows me to pieces.\u00a0 To catch someone hurting you, disobeying you, stabbing you, and to let it go, forgive it, forget it, while having full power to punish for it.\u00a0 To overlook, to glance over, to allow someone the chance to start new because you overlooked their mistake.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s Ramadan, the month of practicing patience, of rising above my anger, of letting things go.\u00a0 There\u2019s something about being hungry that takes away that extra energy that feeds my anger, something about fasting that helps me rise above answering back, arguing, retorting.\u00a0 And then I come up against the beautiful name of Allah SWT, Al Haleem, and stop to think how I can transform that characteristic and my new-found state of constant fasting, into a habit of treating my children with hilm<\/em>, with forbearance.<\/p>\n I think upon Allah\u2019s name, upon His characteristic of Hilm<\/em>, of letting my sins go, forgiving them, overlooking them, not catching me on each and every sin I do, day in and day out.\u00a0 I think upon the hilm<\/em> that I have seen practiced with me by a parent, a grandma, a friend whom I\u2019ve wronged, a husband who lets my angry words slide.\u00a0 And I remember how glad I am, how grateful I am, how embarrassed I am of myself, how determined I am never to let that mistake happen again.<\/p>\n And then I struggle with being a parent.\u00a0 To be forbearing, to let a mistake slide while I have the power to punish for it.\u00a0 To forgive an angry stomp, a hateful glance, a mean word from my 5 year old.\u00a0 To overlook a blatant lie by 7 year old.\u00a0 Not to bottle up my anger for 30 seconds and then let it burst in a much bigger dose of yelling and anger a short while later.\u00a0 To allow my daughter to make a mistake, silently let her realize it, silently give her a reproving look, and then to walk away.\u00a0 How can I have hilm<\/em> with them, and yet help them grow and develop?\u00a0 How can I smile at them in their tantrums, gently pat them in their worst moments, allow them to make a mistake and overlook it?\u00a0 Will she realize her mistake if I let it go?\u00a0 Will she go deeper and deeper with her mistakes if I say nothing?<\/p>\n I haven\u2019t yet found the balance between parental discipline and forbearance (hilm)<\/em>, but I eagerly seek an answer in this blessed month.\u00a0 I will turn in onto my Ramadan self, my fasting self, and seek moments of calm in my fasting state.\u00a0 I will tap into the quiet force that stabilizes me during my moments of anger, the force that keeps me quiet in the face of an angry scream, a hateful word.\u00a0 I will let it rise me above the wave of anger that leads me to a quick retort, a thoughtless action that I will regret not after, but while I am doing it.<\/p>\n Ya Haleem, give me hilm<\/em> with my children, teach me the balance between discipline and patience, forgiveness and forbearance while I journey on this path to Your acceptance.\u00a0 Allow Ramadan to be the time I learn to control my anger, my quick responses, my lack of forbearance.\u00a0 Teach me hilm<\/em>, so that I am like the companion whom your Prophet described as having two characteristics loved by You.\u00a0 Show me the way.<\/p>\n \u00a0Fatima Abdallah<\/p>\n Fatima lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and three little musketeers.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Al Haleem.\u00a0 I struggle with parenting and \u00a0this beautiful characteristic of Allah SWT, this name that blows me to pieces.\u00a0 To catch someone hurting you, disobeying you, stabbing you, and to let it go, forgive it, forget it, while having full power to punish for it.\u00a0 To overlook, to glance over, to allow someone the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1573,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[29,56,260,414,41177],"class_list":["post-4523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-motherhood","tag-99-names-of-allah","tag-al-haleem","tag-controlling-anger-in-parenting","tag-fatima-abdalla","tag-parenting"],"yoast_head":"\n