Bismillah,

There is nothing so pure and innocent as a newborn child. But all children grow and change moving steadily closer to whatever Allah has decreed for its life. What of my children? What will be their path? And what tools will I intentionally give them and which hinderances will I unwittingly pass on to them? The last prophet informed us that parents receive the reward of their children's good and bad actions (excepting some cases of bad actions), but knowing that how can I be lax in educating the lives that will depend on me for knowledge and wisdom?

I think parenthood just got alot more complicated.

Bismillah,

I think that labor and birth are the closest we can come in life to the feel of death. It almost always begins slowly, but before I can finish dinner or put away that last stack of laundry, I'm in the throws of it,  and must use all my energy to remember the lessons I learned all my pregnancy. Relax. Breathe deeply. Move my hips. Thikr. Thikr. Thikr. Allah, Allah, Allaaaaaahuuuuuuuuuu.

And in the last moments when all of my energy is focused on expansion and release, I get to see if all my works and intentions were real or if I wasted all the months of precious time God had given me. And after the last and first breaths are taken I am rewarded with exactly what God promised in the beginning, for those who have hope and awareness of Him.