The Love I Could Still Give

O my Allah—
Let me speak before my soul grows quiet.
Not in defiance, not in pride,
But in the trembling honesty
Of someone who has spent years
Trying to touch Your light
With hands that couldn’t stop shaking.

Yes, my age has ripened,
Yes, I’ve seen what this world does to innocence.
And I know—eventually, we all lose it.
But they lose it within the bounds You designed.
They fall, but fall towards You.

And I?
I only ever wanted You—more than they did,
More than the ones who reached You easily.
I wanted nothing more
Than to stand among those You love.
But I wasn’t allowed.

Not by rebellion.
Not by disbelief.
But by a body that buckled,
A mind that betrayed me,
And a life that unfolded like a locked door
Each time I tried to walk through.

You saw me, didn’t You?
You must have seen
The way others wandered into Your mercy
Without bleeding for it—
But I bled, Ya Allah.

The thorns I never blamed You for.
I read Your Book—I knew You said,
“I will test you.”
So I didn’t cry at the thorns.
I cried at the strength I didn’t have.

My eyes blur when I try to read Your words.
My hands tremble when I reach for them.
My spine folds when I try to bow.
Even when my heart was ablaze with longing—
My body slammed the door shut.

Do You know what that does to a soul?
To want to rise at Fajr
But be held hostage by a brain
That panics at the sound of dawn?

To whisper Bismillah
And feel like I’m lying—
Because every nerve in me
Is at war with my faith.

And still—
Still I tried.

But the sleep terrors,
The paralysis,
The migraines that ripped through my skull
Like thunder splitting the sky—
They broke me.

They didn’t just hurt my body,
They did something far worse:
They made me doubt myself.
They made me wonder
If I would ever be good enough
To be called Your servant.

O Allah—
I stopped trying to follow every rule,
Not because I didn’t want to—
But because every attempt left me shattered.

I don’t bring You a record of great deeds.
I don’t bring long fasts or eloquent duas.
But I bring You this—

I never hurt Your people.
Even when I was hurting,
I didn’t pass that pain forward.

I smiled when I could.
I softened where I was hardening.
That’s how I worshipped You,
When I couldn’t stand on a prayer mat.

Is that something You accept?

I ask not with arrogance,
But with the shattered voice
Of someone who’s loved You in silence
While drowning in weakness.

I wonder—
Will You enter me into Your garden
When I bring no grandeur,
No strength,
Just love?

Because that’s all I ever had left.

I loved You.
Through paralysis.
Through fear.
Through failure.
Through the shame of not being enough
For a faith I believed in more than anything.

Ya Allah—my intentions were holy,
Even when my actions failed.
And though my path never matched the map,
My heart never stopped walking toward You.

Do You take love from those
Who couldn’t follow all the signs?

If You do,
Then I am Yours.